Tobacco use and dependence among adults residing in an urbanized village, Delhi, India.

Introduction: Tobacco use is one of the most significant public health concerns globally as it is a risk factor for chronic illnesses. GATS-2 concluded that 28.6% of all adults currently use Tobacco in India and 17.8% in Delhi. It is important to conduct such surveys in local areas to make specific and effective action plans.

Materials And Methods: Community-based cross-sectional study conducted between January 2020-June 2021 in Aliganj, an urbanized village in South Delhi. Four hundred ninety participants were enrolled using simple random sampling. The first author conducted the interview using GATS and Fagerstrom nicotine dependence test. Data was analyzed using SPSS-21.

Results: Median age-35 (26.75-75.00), range-15-84 years. Of the 490 participants, 20.0% were current tobacco users (10.6% smokeless, 7.3% smoked, and 2.2% both). Among current smokers, 78.3% had low, 17.4% moderate, and 4.3% had high dependence on nicotine dependence. Among current smokeless tobacco users, 52.4% had, low, 36.5% moderate, and 11.1% had high dependence. Males had significantly higher odds [6.6 (2.9-15.1)] of tobacco use than females. Higher education [0.3 (0.2-0.8)] compared to no formal education had significantly lower odds of using tobacco. Students [0.1 (0.04-0.4)] and homemakers [0.1 (0.01-0.5)] had significantly lower odds of using tobacco as compared to those employed.

Conclusions: One in every five adults is a tobacco user in Aliganj. Manufactured cigarettes, bidi, and water pipes were the most common products among smokers. Among smokeless tobacco users, the most common products were chewing tobacco gutka, and khaini. A larger proportion of smokeless tobacco users had high nicotine dependence than smoked tobacco users.