Tobacco smoking and its association with illicit drug use among young men aged 15-24 years living in urban slums of Bangladesh.
BACKGROUND
Tobacco smoking (TS) and illicit drug use (IDU) are of public health concerns especially in developing countries, including Bangladesh. This paper aims to (i) identify the determinants of TS and IDU, and (ii) examine the association of TS with IDU among young slum dwellers in Bangladesh.


RESULTS
Data on a total of 1,576 young slum dwellers aged 15-24 years were extracted for analysis from the 2006 Urban Health Survey (UHS), which covered a nationally representative sample of 13,819 adult men aged 15-59 years from slums, non-slums and district municipalities of six administrative regions in Bangladesh. Methods used include frequency run, Chi-square test of association and multivariable logistic regression. The overall prevalence of TS in the target group was 42.3%, of which 41.4% smoked cigarettes and 3.1% smoked bidis. The regression model for TS showed that age, marital status, education, duration of living in slums, and those with sexually transmitted infections were significantly (p<0.001 to p<0.05) associated with TS. The overall prevalence of IDU was 9.1%, dominated by those who had drug injections (3.2%), and smoked ganja (2.8%) and tari (1.6%). In the regression model for IDU, the significant (p<0.01 to p<0.10) predictors were education, duration of living in slums, and whether infected by sexually transmitted diseases. The multivariable logistic regression (controlling for other variables) revealed significantly (p<0.001) higher likelihood of IDU (OR = 9.59, 95% CI = 5.81-15.82) among users of any form of TS. The likelihood of IDU increased significantly (p<0.001) with increased use of cigarettes.


CONCLUSIONS
Certain groups of youth are more vulnerable to TS and IDU. Therefore, tobacco and drug control efforts should target these groups to reduce the consequences of risky lifestyles through information, education and communication (IEC) programs.
Department of Applied Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. alamgirfa_juniv@yahoo.com
Mohammad Alamgir
MA
Kabir
Kim-Leng
KL
Goh
Sunny Mohammad Mostafa
SM
Kamal
Md Mobarak Hossain
MM
Khan
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001459:Bangladesh / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D015995:Prevalence; D062486:Public Health Surveillance; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult