Trends in Tobacco Use among 9th Graders in Sweden, 1991–2020

Jonas Raninen, Isabella Gripe, Martina Zetterqvist and Mats Ramstedt ()
Additional contact information
Jonas Raninen: Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), 116 64 Stockholm, Sweden
Isabella Gripe: Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), 116 64 Stockholm, Sweden
Martina Zetterqvist: Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), 116 64 Stockholm, Sweden
Mats Ramstedt: Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), 116 64 Stockholm, Sweden

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 7, 1-9

Abstract: Tobacco use was measured with self-reports of lifetime use of cigarettes and snus to examine trends in tobacco use among Swedish 9th graders over the period 1991–2020. Annual school surveys with nationally representative samples of 9th-grade students in Sweden covering the period 1991–2020 with a total sample of 163,617 students. We distinguished between the use of cigarettes only, use of snus only, dual use (use of both cigarettes and snus), and total tobacco use (use of any of these tobacco products). In addition to a graphical description of trends in the various measures of tobacco use, the correlation between these trends was calculated with the Pearson correlation coefficient (Rxy). The prevalence of total tobacco use declined from 72% in 1991 to 36% in 2020. The declining trend in total tobacco use was positively correlated with the trend in dual use (Rxy = 0.98) and the trend in cigarette use only (Rxy = 0.87). The trend in total tobacco use was, on the other hand, negatively correlated with snus use only (Rxy = −0.41), and snus use only was negatively correlated with cigarette use only (Rxy = −0.71). The situation became different after 2017 when total tobacco use increased as a result of an increasing prevalence of snus use. The sharp decline in tobacco use among 9th graders in Sweden over the past three decades is driven by declining cigarette use. The correlations between the various forms of tobacco use suggest that snus use may have contributed to the decline in cigarette use and, by that, overall tobacco use. The situation changed after 2017 when a sharp rise in snus use seems to have increased total tobacco use among adolescents in Sweden. A possible explanation behind this development is the introduction of a new form of snus called “All white snus”, which was introduced in Sweden in 2014.

Keywords: tobacco; youth; survey; Sweden; snus; cigarettes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/7/5262/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/7/5262/ (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:20:y:2023:i:7:p:5262-:d:1107246

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 ().