title: Tobacco abuse amongst the school going students of 15 to 18 years of Almora district, Uttarakhand: a cross sectional study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The present study was done to assess the prevalence of tobacco abuse among school going students of the age group 15 to 18 year old in the rural areas of Almora district, Uttrakhand state, India.
  
  
  METHODS
  Schools were grouped into 4 zones north, south and east, west based on their location in district, respectively. Second stage one private and one government school was randomly selected from each zone of rural Almora. All students belonging to age 15 to 18 year were selected from the selected schools. Data was collected by a pretested, closed ended questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, the prevalence of tobacco consumption among the adolescents was 45.42%. 63% male and 47.1% female adolescents were habituated to it. All female and majority of the male adolescents predominantly consumed a smokeless form of tobacco.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The prevalence of tobacco consumption indicates a downward shift in the age for the uptake of tobacco habit by adolescents and a rising prevalence among girls. Our findings suggest that tobacco use prevention and control measures are warranted and should be started very early preferably at primary education level.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, Teerthankar Mahaveer Dental College and Research Centre, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India; Tel: +91-8899746798; e-mail: drdevanandgupta@aol.com.
authors.forename: Devanand
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Priya
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nagar
authors.forename: Bushra
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Karim
authors.forename: Imran Mohammed K F
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Naveen
authors.forename: Mudita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chaturvedi
authors.forename: Renuka
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.forename: Parth
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Purwar
authors.forename: Rajendra Kumar
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Gupta