Tobacco use among women has increased fourfold, whilst among men it has dropped by 33%.
This difference was witnessed in the past five years between 2015-16 and 2020-21, reported the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5).
Conducted by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the survey also found that tobacco use rates among both women and men in Punjab are below the national average.
Discussing the findings, the president and Director of Public Health at the Strategic Institute for Public Health Education and Research (SIPHER), Dr Rakesh Gupta, told The Tribune, that the NFHS-5 conducted in 2020-21 found that the overall average of women who used tobacco accounted for 0.4% in the 2020-21 survey, up from 0.1% in the 2015-16 survey. While interestingly, the overall percentage of men dropped by almost one-third from 19.2% in 2015-16 to 12.9% in 2020-21.
Diane Caruana – VapingPost – 2022-06-21.
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