title: Epidemiology of substance abuse in the population of Lucknow.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Habit of consuming tobacco and areca-nut containing substances is in vogue in Lucknow as a part of the Nawabi culture. Hence, this study was planned with an aim to generate evidence for the prevalence of habits of substance abuse by the population of Lucknow and know their socio-demographic profile.
  
  
  METHODS
  Population based cross-sectional study was conducted by organizing oral health check-up camps in randomly selected rural and urban parts of Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, which is the most populated state of India. Patients were enrolled after obtaining informed consent. A structured and validated questionnaire based tool was administered by a team of trained dental surgeons for collecting the desired information through interview and their oral cavity examination.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 3437 subjects were enrolled in the study, out of which 82.9% were male and 17.1% were female. Among them, 64.6% subjects belonged to rural domiciliary status, by religion, 80.6% and 18.5% of the subjects were Hindu and Muslims respectively. The most prevalent habit was consumption of smokeless tobacco substances, of which pan masala with tobacco (gutkha) was the most prevalent substance of abuse.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Smokeless tobacco consumption was highly prevalent in the population surveyed. It is recommended to formulate and implement strong preventive strategies. Also, steps should be taken to increase the awareness of the harmful consequences of these habits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, King George's Medical University, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: Sumit
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, King George's Medical University, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: Divya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mehrotra
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: Shambhavi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, King George's Medical University, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Goel
authors.affiliation: All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, India.
authors.forename: Sandeep
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Indian Council of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Prashant
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mathur
authors.affiliation: All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, India.
authors.forename: Kishore
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Choudhary
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Pandey
keywords: Alcohol; Areca-nut; Epidemiology; Pan masala; Tobacco