Correlates of current cigarette smoking among in-school adolescents in the Kurdistan region of Iraq

Seter Siziya¹ , Adamson S Muula² and Emmanuel Rudatsikira³

¹University of Zambia, School of Medicine, Lusaka, Zambia

²Department of Community Health, University of Malawi, Blantyre, Malawi

³Departments of Global Health, Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, California, USA

author email corresponding author email

Conflict and Health 2007, 1:13doi:10.1186/1752-1505-1-13


Published:	4 December 2007

Abstract

Background

Many adult cigarette smokers initiated the habit as adolescents. Adolescent tobacco use may be a marker of other unhealthy behaviours. There are limited data on the prevalence and correlates of cigarette smoking among in-school adolescents in Iraq. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of, and assess the socio-demographic correlates of current cigarette smoking among in-school adolescents in Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Methods

Secondary data analysis of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, conducted in the region of Kurdistan, Iraq in 2006. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess the association between current cigarette smoking and explanatory variables.

Results

One thousand nine hundred eighty-nine adolescents participated in the Kurdistan-Iraq Global Youth Tobacco Survey. Of these, 58.1% and 41.9% were boys and girls respectively. The overall prevalence of current cigarette smoking was 15.3%; 25.1% and 2.7% in boys and girls respectively. The factors associated with adolescent smoking were: parents' smoking, smoking in closest friends, male gender, having pocket money and perceptions that boys or girls who smoked were attractive.

Conclusion

We suggest that public health interventions aimed to curb adolescent cigarette smoking should be designed, implemented and evaluated with due recognition to the factors that are associated with the habit.