Smoking Behavior among Adolescents: The Lebanese Experience with Cigarette Smoking and Waterpipe Use

Marwan Akel, Fouad Sakr, Iqbal Fahs, Ahmad Dimassi, Mariam Dabbous, Virginie Ehlinger, Pascale Salameh and Emmanuelle Godeau
Additional contact information
Marwan Akel: School of Pharmacy, Lebanese International University, Beirut 1103, Lebanon
Fouad Sakr: School of Pharmacy, Lebanese International University, Beirut 1103, Lebanon
Iqbal Fahs: School of Pharmacy, Lebanese International University, Beirut 1103, Lebanon
Ahmad Dimassi: School of Pharmacy, Lebanese International University, Beirut 1103, Lebanon
Mariam Dabbous: School of Pharmacy, Lebanese International University, Beirut 1103, Lebanon
Virginie Ehlinger: UMR 1295 CERPOP (Centre for Epidemiology and Research in Population Health), INSERM, Toulouse University III Paul Sabatier, Team SPHERE, 31059 Toulouse, France
Pascale Salameh: INSPECT-LB (Institut National de Santé Publique, d’Épidémiologie Clinique et de Toxicologie-Liban), Beirut 6573, Lebanon
Emmanuelle Godeau: UMR 1295 CERPOP (Centre for Epidemiology and Research in Population Health), INSERM, Toulouse University III Paul Sabatier, Team SPHERE, 31059 Toulouse, France

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: (1) Background: The study aims to assess cigarette smoking and waterpipe experimentation among Lebanese adolescent school students with respect to their gender, region, age, and socioeconomic status. (2) Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, where students between 11 to 18 years of age were included from all over Lebanon. (3) Results: A total of 1133 students were interviewed. The total proportion of adolescents who ever experimented with cigarette smoking was 24.5%. Males experimented with cigarette smoking more commonly than females (31.9% vs. 19.1%; p < 0.001). Cigarette smoking experimentation was higher among students from the Beirut area (33.6%; p < 0.001) in comparison to other regions, and among those with poor health perception (29.1% vs. 19.8%; p < 0.001) compared to students with excellent health perception. The total proportion of adolescents who ever used a waterpipe was 33.9%. Waterpipes were significantly more experimented with among males than females (40.3% vs. 29.8%; p < 0.001), and among students with bad perception about their health (39.4% vs. 28.9%; p < 0.001). Adolescents who experimented with both cigarettes and waterpipes constitute 22.2% of the studied sample. (4) Conclusions: The rate of tobacco product use is alarming and constitutes a major public health issue for adolescents that urgently needs intervention. The findings raise important policy implications for the development of cigarette smoking prevention programs for youth.

Keywords: smoking; children; adolescents; school aged; cigarette; waterpipe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5679/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5679/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:5679-:d:810099

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().