Prevalence of Smoking Tobacco use in India Assignment 2022

Prevalence of Smoking Tobacco Use in India
The intake of tobacco in India is practised in different forms. Some include cigarette and beedis
(dried tobacco leaves wrapped using a paper) smoking. They also consume smokeless tobacco
which comprises of chewing pan (a combination of lime, portions of areca nut, and other flavors
enfolded using some leaves) among others. The highest number of global tobacco users are from
India both in number and relative share. It is one among the few global nations with a high
incidence of various forms of tobacco usage. The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) (2017)
28.6% of the Indian population are tobacco smokers of any form with smoke accounting for
10.7% and SLT (21.4%), Khaini 11%, and beedis at 8% (Singh, & Ladusingh, 2014). This high
burden of tobacco use has been linked to a high death rate. As a result, the Indian Government
launched the National Tobacco Control Program (NTCP)
National Tobacco Control Program (NTCP)
The aim of initiating NTCP by the Indian government is to safeguard its citizens; young and old
from the harmful health, social and ecological effects of tobacco use and exposure. NTCP
achieves this goal by creating greater awareness regarding the devastating consequences of the
use of tobacco and regarding the laws regulating tobacco and their actualization. NTCP is
responsible for implementing COTPA 2003, offering training on the tobacco prevention
strategies, designing school programs on tobacco cessation among others. The entity has
partnered with a world health organization, public health foundation among other volunteers
The major areas of implementation of NTCP include:
 Training of health and social workers, non-governmental organizations, school tutors,
and enforcement officers.
 Offering information, awareness, and communication events
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 Institutional programmes
 Regulation of tobacco control laws
 Planning with Panchayati Raj Institutes for activities in remote areas
 Establishing and promoting cessation centers in addition to offering pharmacological
treatment centers at different levels.
The programme is actualized in three phases namely central level, state level and district level.
Overall, NTCP is under implantation in 36 states with over 600 districts distributed across the
nation.
i. Central Level
The National Tobacco Control cell (NTCC) is implemented at the district level and it oversees
the general formulation of policy, organization, coordination, overseeing and assessment of the
varying activities as prescribed in the NTCP.
ii. State Level
The State Tobacco Control Cell (STCC) is implemented at the state level with activities such as
seminars on State Level Advocacy, offering training services to the trainers of DTCC, refresher
training to employees, training on ceasing of tobacco use among healthcare providers
iii. District level
District Tobacco Control Cell (DTCC) is implemented at the district level with the responsibility
of implementation and overseeing of tobacco control efforts. Trainings on various stakeholders,
oversight role on tobacco control laws etc (National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP, n.d.).
The use of tobacco in whatever form affects the quality of health of both the smokers and the
non-smokers exposed to the smoke. Epidemiological studies on the social determinants of health
have cited multiple determinants that affect smoking or tobacco use. The specific social
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determinants of health that affect smoking or tobacco use in the context of India include income,
occupation, social class and gender.
Rampant tobacco use and smoking has been reported among those from the lower-income
category. According to Palipudi et al. (2012), poor households which are characterized by low
income have a high occurrence of tobacco use because of the negative correlation between
poverty and influence regarding policy formulation, thus leaving the virtually ignored. Lower-
income is also associated with illiteracy or lack of education. Studies have examined the
association between education and smoking found that the habit was more prevalent among
those with lower education. The study by Bhawna (2013) on the impact of tobacco consumption
in India found out that the retired and unemployed were the most common users of tobacco
(46.8%) compared with the employed. Thakur et al. (2013) also found out that the low
socioeconomic status Indians were 1.6 times higher to smoke compared to the wealthy class.
Education and income have been found to influence smoking because of the higher the education
the higher the chances of being employed and securing higher income and better health services
in the lifetime. Moreover, high literacy levels increase accessibility to information on healthy
practices and thus enabling one to avoid unharmful health practices such as smoking (Palipudi et
al., 2012).
The control of tobacco uses and smoking have been perceived to be a social justice issue due to
its rather high prevalence among the low socioeconomic communities. Tobacco control
programs are often focused on the high economic class and yet the marketing promotions on the
use of tobacco are usually exposed to an equal measure to both high and low economic classes.
Some of the social injustice practices used by the tobacco-producing companies in their
marketing include the production of poor brands for low socioeconomic community and
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