Awareness and Use of Electronic Cigarettes in Indonesia, Malaysia, Qatar, and Greece – Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2010-13

Morton, Jeremy

Awareness and Use of Electronic Cigarettes in Indonesia, Malaysia, Qatar, and Greece – Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2010-13

Monday, 18 August 2014

Exhibit hall (Dena'ina Center)

Jeremy Morton , US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

Krishna M Palipudi , US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

Lazarous Mbulo , US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

Glenda Blutcher-Nelson , US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

Soewarta Kosen , National Institute of Health Research and Development, Jakarta, Indonesia

Tee Guat Hiong , Institute for Public Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Amani Mohamed Elkhatim Abdalla , Supreme Council of Health, Doha, Qatar

Anastasia Barbouni , National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece

Eleni Antoniadou , National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece

Samira Asma , US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

INTRODUCTION: Electronic cigarettes are new products that deliver nicotine to the lungs. They have been marketed as a potential cessation and harm reduction product but are largely unregulated. There are concerns about their safety, particularly for youth and pregnant women, and about their effects on eroding gains in tobacco control by renormalizing smoking, undermining smoke-free laws, and increasing attractiveness to youth. Limited data are available on the use of e-cigarettes particularly in developing countries. To address this, the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) incorporated questions on e-cigarettes.

METHODS: GATS is a nationally representative household survey of persons 15 years of age or older and provides a global standard for monitoring adult tobacco use and enhancing the capacity of countries to design, implement, and evaluate tobacco control interventions. During 2010-2013, four countries conducting GATS (Indonesia, Greece, Malaysia, Qatar) asked e-cigarette questions about awareness ("Have you ever heard of electronic cigarettes?") and current use ("Do you currently use electronic cigarettes..?"). These indicators were analyzed by various socio-demographic variables.

RESULTS: Awareness of e-cigarettes was higher in the developed countries of Greece (88.5%) and Qatar (49.0%) than the developing countries of Malaysia (21.0%) and Indonesia (10.9%). Current use of e-cigarettes was relatively low in all four countries (Greece 1.9%, Qatar 0.9%, Malaysia 0.8%, Indonesia 0.3%; 815,000 total users) and they were mostly used by current smokers. Among current smokers, use was higher among those who were interested in quitting than those who were not interested in quitting.

CONCLUSIONS: Although current use was found to be low in the four countries, monitoring and tracking of e-cigarettes is imperative given the health and safety concerns about this emerging product. Systematic tracking of population awareness and use of e-cigarettes is vital to understand the public health impact globally and to facilitate planning for effective public health interventions.