title: Cigarette smoking among school children in Singapore. Part I--Smoking prevalence.
abstract: A cross sectional nationally representative survey of 33,110 school-going children in Singapore aged between 9 and 20 years was carried out to obtain, for the first time, baseline information on smoking among the school-going population in Singapore. The survey was carried out among students attending vocational institutes and public sector schools in Singapore in 1987. The overall smoking prevalence was found to be 2% (3% among boys and 0.2% among girls). Ex-smokers comprised 2% of respondents whilst those who had only experimented with smoking made up 9% of the respondents. Analyses of the data showed that cigarette smoking was more prevalent among Malays, among boys, among older children, and among the less academically inclined. On average, boys smoked a median of 20 cigarettes a week and girls, 12 cigarettes a week. On an international basis, the smoking prevalence among the school-going population in Singapore is significantly lower than that of developed countries like Australia, England and Wales and neighbouring countries such as Malaysia.
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Health HQ, Singapore.
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Emmanuel
authors.forename: C K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001315:Australia; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012737:Sex Factors; D012846:Singapore; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013334:Students; D006113:United Kingdom