Tribal adolescents in Odisha introduced to smokeless tobacco without family control, study finds

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Image for representational purposes only. File

Image for representational purposes only. File | Photo Credit: Possessed Photography/Unsplash

Tribal adolescents successful Odisha, location to India’s astir divers tribal communities, with the State’s 64 tribes including 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), are initiated into the depletion of smokeless baccy arsenic aboriginal arsenic 12 to 16 years of property owed to deficiency of household control, and adjacent pressure, a survey by the determination section of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has found.

The study, titled ‘A qualitative survey connected tobacco-use associated behaviour and large influencing factors among youths from indigenous communities of Odisha, India’, carried retired by the Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC), Bhubaneswar, an ICMR institute, and Utkal University, says the prevalence of smokeless baccy depletion is 61% among men, and 35% among women.

The survey of 210 respondents from the Santhal and Bhumij tribal communities says baccy depletion habits are influenced by assorted socio-demographic determinants involving idiosyncratic and community-level characteristics, including ethnicity, gender, age, education, and occupation, arsenic good arsenic the socio-cultural environment.

Tobacco power laws are retired of measurement with smokeless tobacco

“We person recovered respective factors causing the initiation of baccy consumption. Teenagers (between the ages of 12 years to 16 years) are observed arsenic the superior property for initiation of baccy consumption. However, the household concern and adjacent radical person exclusive roles to play successful the initiation of the baccy wont among adolescents and youths,” Subhendu Kumar Acharya, elder idiosyncratic astatine the RMRC, said.

“Early experiences owed to the deficiency of household power were observed, starring to aboriginal habituation to tobacco. Peer unit was besides observed arsenic the different large and important origin successful this process, which happened done the power of adjacent friends and older radical successful the adjacent group,” Mr. Acharya said.

Adolescents go acquainted with baccy astatine taste spaces, including section games and festivals. Learning from elders, they research baccy depletion portion successful schoolhouse oregon college, the survey found.

“While we concisely explored organization facilities, it was recovered that determination are lone 13 baccy de-addiction centres successful the full of Odisha, and they are highly constricted successful their beingness and functionality,” the RMRC idiosyncratic said, adding that the cessation of baccy depletion is indispensable to trim its associated mortality and morbidity.

“Further, deficiency of cognition connected the adverse wellness effects of baccy use, on with this scarcity of healthcare infrastructure, are the different large factors. It needs further elaborate probe regarding the wellness strategy and associated baccy power practices, followed by indispensable involution strategy,” Mr. Acharya said.

In an earlier RMRC study, the investigation of information connected the organisation of adults utilizing immoderate signifier of baccy successful India showed Odisha arsenic the largest user of immoderate signifier of baccy among some males and females successful the large States successful India, excluding the northeastern States.

Analysis of National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 information said that, arsenic against 8.9% of nationalist prevalence of baccy depletion among women supra the property radical of 14 years, the prevalence among women successful Odisha is 26%.  In the lawsuit of men, the prevalence roseate to 52% compared with the nationalist mean of 38%.

The contiguous survey shows smokeless baccy depletion among the tribes of Odisha stands astatine 48.4% (male 61.5%, and pistillate 35.5%).

Published - April 04, 2026 09:18 p.m. IST

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