The second round of Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) reveals that overall tobacco use has declined significantly among adults in Kerala from 21.4% in 2009-10 to 12.7% in 2016-17.
The survey data was released here on Wednesday by Health Minister K.K. Shylaja.
The data shows that smoking has decreased among adults from 13.4% to 9.3% during this time-period while the use of smokeless tobacco also came down from 10.7% to 5.4%.
Smokers use these two
GATS-2 survey found that cigarette and betel quid with tobacco were the two most commonly used tobacco products in the State with 6.7% of the adults smoking cigarette and 4.4% of adults using betel quid with tobacco.
The survey, which has set global standards for systematically monitoring adult tobacco use and tracking key tobacco control indicators, covered all persons above 15 years across the country.
The first round of GATS was conducted in 2009-10. GATS 2 was conducted in 2016-17 under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoH&FW), Government of India, with technical assistance from World Health Organisation (WHO), Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, using a multi-stage sample design.
In Kerala, GATS 2 covered a total of 783 males and 1,403 females.
One encouraging result from GATS-2 is that there has been a significant decline in exposure to second hand smoke (SHS) from tobacco use in the State in public places from 18.7% in 2009-10 to 13.7% in 2016-17. SHS exposure at home fell sharply from 41.8% to 16.0% while at workplaces, it increased from 17.5% to 20.8% during the same period.
