You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 7, Issue 1
  • Prevalence and determinants of current and secondhand smoking in Greece: results from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) study

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

XML
Smoking and tobacco
Research
Prevalence and determinants of current and secondhand smoking in Greece: results from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) study
  1. George Rachiotis1,
  2. Anastasia Barbouni2,
  3. Antonis Katsioulis1,
  4. Eleni Antoniadou2,
  5. Konstantinos Kostikas1,
  6. Kyriakoula Merakou2,
  7. Kallirrhoe Kourea1,
  8. Rula N Khoury3,
  9. Agis Tsouros3,
  10. Jenny Kremastinou2,
  11. Christos Hadjichristodoulou1
  1. 1Faculty of Medicine, Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece
  2. 2Department of Public and Administrative Health, National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece
  3. 3Regional Office for Europe, World Health Organization, Copenhagen, Denmark
  1. Correspondence to Dr Christos Hadjichristodoulou; xhatzi{at}med.uth.gr

Abstract

Objectives Greece is one of the leading tobacco-producing countries in European Union, and every year over 19 000 Greeks die from tobacco-attributable diseases. The aim of the present study was to provide nationally representative estimates on current and secondhand smoking prevalence in Greece and their determinants.

Design Cross-sectional.

Setting Greece.

Participants A total of 4359 individuals participated in the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), a household survey of adults ≥15 years old (overall response rate 69%). They were selected through a multistage geographically clustered sampling design with face-to-face interview.

Primary and secondary outcome measures In 2013, we investigated the prevalence of current and secondhand smoking and their determinants. Univariate and logistic regression analysis was used in order to identify possible risk factors associated with the prevalence of current and secondhand smoking.

Results The prevalence of current smoking was 38.2% (95% CI 35.7% to 40.8%), and the mean number of cigarettes smoked per day was 19.8. Multivariate analysis confirmed that male gender (OR=3.24; 95% CI 2.62 to 4.00), age groups (25–39, OR=4.49; 95% CI 3.09 to 8.46 and 40–54, OR=3.51; 95% CI 1.88 to 5.87) and high school education (OR=1.97; 95% CI 1.41 to 2.74) were independently associated with the current smoking. Remarkably, responders with primary or less education had the lowest prevalence of current smoking (p<0.001). The prevalence of exposure to secondhand smoke at work, home and restaurants, was 52.3%, 65.7% and 72.2%. In total, 90.0% (95% CI 87.8% to 91.9%) of Greek population is exposed to tobacco smoke (current smoking and secondhand smoke).

Conclusions Our results revealed an extremely high prevalence of current smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke among the adult population and a positive gradient between education and current smoking. These findings are alarming and implementation of comprehensive tobacco control and prevention strategies could be impactful in fighting the tobacco epidemic in Greece.

  • GATS
  • current smoking
  • second-hand smoking
  • Greece

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013150

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • GR and AB contributed equally as first authors.

    • Contributors GR participated in study design, drafted and revised the manuscript. AB participated in study design, supervised the study implementation, drafted and revised the manuscript. AK participated in study design and statistical analysis. EA, KK and KM participated in study design and revised the manuscript. KKour participated in data collection and revision of the manuscript. JM, AT and JK participated in study design and revised the manuscript for important intellectual content. RNK participated in study design. CH supervised study design and the implementation of the study, participated in statistical analysis, interpretation of results and revision of the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

    • Funding The GATS Greece 2013 is implemented through the Operational Programme entitled ‘Human Resources Development’ of National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2007–2013 (number agreement IMS-328/773). The programme is co-funded by Greece and the European Union—European Regional Development Fund. Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA (CDC) provided technical assistance.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval Approval of the study protocol was received by the Institutional Review Board of National School of Public Health (NSPH), Athens, Greece.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement The data for Greece GATS 2013 are available from CDC (http://nccd.cdc.gov/GTSSData/Ancillary/DataReports.aspx?CAID=2).