Epidemiological study of alcohol and tobacco consumption in people above 15 years of age in rural area of Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization predicts that tobacco deaths in India may exceed 1.5 million annually by 2020.Very few community-based studies have been conducted on the prevalence of alcohol use in India. Alcohol consumption has a U- shaped relation with ischemic heart disease and is as well a strong frisk factor for hepatic cirrhosis and many other type of injury. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study, carried out in three villages of a PHC. A total of 3771 study subjects aged 15 years and above were included in the study. It was conducted from July 2007 to December 2009. General information and socio-economic details of study subjects were obtained. Details were recorded about personal habits like smoking, consumption of smokeless tobacco, alcohol. General and systemic examination was carried out and findings were recorded. Results: In the present study, the prevalence of current smokers was 20.5% among males and none among females. In the present study the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use was 48.3% and the prevalence of current consumer of alcohol was 37.7% among males while there were none among the female. Conclusions: we found a low prevalence of smoking tobacco and non-consumption of alcohol among females which can be attributed to the less social acceptability of smoking in this rural part of Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.