Northeastern states have highest prevalence of tobacco use, says report

Tripura tops the list, with 64.5% of the people either smoking or using smokeless tobacco. This is an increase of 8.6 percentage points over the state’s prevalence of 55.9% in 2009-10.

The prevalence of tobacco use was the highest in north eastern states, according to a recently released factsheet from the 2016-17 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS 2) report.

Tripura tops the list, with 64.5% of the people either smoking or using smokeless tobacco. This is an increase of 8.6 percentage points over the state’s prevalence of 55.9% in 2009-10.

The prevalence went up in Manipur by one percentage point, in Uttar Pradesh by 1.6 percentage points, in Tamil Nadu by 3.8 percentage points, and in Goa by 0.9 percentage points. It shot up in Assam by 8.9 percentage points, from 39.3% to 48.2%.

Overall, the number of tobacco users has gone down in India by six percentage points during the six years, from 34.6% to 28.6%.

Tripura also has the highest prevalence of smokeless tobacco users, with 48.5% of people using it. With 34.4%, Mizoram had the highest number of smokers.

A total of 58.7% of the people from the state use some form of tobacco. The numbers have gone down from 67.2% in 2009-10.