Prevalence of Tobacco Use and the Factors Affecting It: A Cross-sectional Analysis of Baseline Data From the Bandare Kong Cohort Study in Southern Iran

Tobacco use (TU) has been increasing in Iran and turned into a major national healthcare concern. Therefore, the present research aimed to explore the prevalence of TU and its predictors in Bandar Kong in the south of Iran.

The baseline data from the Bandare Kong Cohort Study were used in a prospective study of 4,035 subjects (40-70 years old) in Hormozgan province from 2016 to 2018. Adjusted and crude odds ratios (OR) were used at 95% confidence interval (CI) to determine the predictors of TU.

Hookah smoking (HS) was found to be the most prevalent type of smoking (17.60%, 95% CI: 16.41-18.78%), followed by second-hand smoking (17%, 95% CI: 15.81-18.14%) and cigarette smoking (9%, 95% CI: 8.11-9.89%), respectively. Age, gender, education, alcohol consumption, and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) were the main predictors of cigarette and HS. Marital status, place of residence, and psychological problems were the predictors of HS (OR = 0.1.65, 95% CI: 1.11, 2.45, P = 0.01), and body mass index (BMI) (OR = 0.95, 95% CI: .93, 0.98, P = 0.002) and drug abuse (OR = 4.52, 95% CI: 3.11, 6.55, P < 0.001) were the predictors of cigarette smoking.

Male gender, higher age, rural residence, low education, alcohol consumption, drugs, second-hand smoking, and history of depression were among the main risk factors of smoking behavior. The results indicated a considerable need for more educational and preventive programs for each risk factor involved in smoking behavior especially for HS, exposure to ETS, and its consequences in the population of Bandar Kong.