“The prevalence rate has come down to 12.1% compared to about 15% in the previous GYTS survey in 2013,” said Dr Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad al-Thani, director of Public Health at MoPH.
The press conference to announce the results of the survey was also attended by Dr Kholoud al-Mutawa, head of Non-Communicable Disease Section and Dr Amani Elkhatim - public health specialist - Non Communicable Diseases Section at MoPH.
The GYTS, a component of the Global Tobacco Surveillance system, is a global standard for systematically monitoring youth tobacco use and tracking key tobacco control indicators. GYTS is a cross-sectional, nationally representative school - based survey of students in grades associated with ages 13 to 15 years.
In Qatar, GYTS was conducted in 2018 by the MoPH. The survey included Qataris and non-Qataris.The overall response rate was 89%. A total of 2,328 eligible students in grades 7 – 9 completed the survey, of which 1,608 were aged 13 -15 years.
According to the survey, tobacco products are used by 12.1% of students with 15.7 % of boys, and 8.7% of girls. A total of 10.7% of students, with (13.8% of boys, and 7.7% of girls) currently smoked tobacco; 6.6% of students, (10.2% of boys, and 3.3% of girls) smoked cigarettes and 4.5% of students, (6.4% of boys and 2.7% of girls) used smokeless tobacco.
The survey also found out that 11.3% of students, (15% of boys, and 7.8% of girls) use electronic cigarettes in Qatar. More than five in 10 (54.5%) current tobacco smokers tried to stop smoking in the past 12 months while more than five in 10 (50.1%) tobacco smokers wanted to stop smoking now.
The survey also found out that 24.5% of students were exposed to tobacco smoke at home and 41.8% to tobacco smoke inside enclosed public places.
The survey also notes that about 54.3% of current cigarette smokers bought cigarettes from a store or shop, street vendor, kiosk, or cafeteria. Among cigarette smokers who tried to buy cigarettes, 69.1% were not prevented from buying them because of their age. Almost 5 in 10 (46.2%) students noticed anti-tobacco messages in the media and almost 3 in 10 (28.3%) students noticed tobacco advertisements or promotions when visiting points of sale.
A total of 55.6% of students thought other people’s tobacco smoking is harmful to them while 71.5% favoured prohibiting smoking inside enclosed public places.
“This is the fourth round of GYTS survey, done every five years, and Qatar has done it in 2004, 2007, 2013 and now in 2018. The prevalence rate was 20% in 2004 and now we have reached 12% which is among the best in the world and actually the best in the GCC,” explained Sheikh Mohamed.
Dr Elkhatim said the quitting rate needs to be improved.“We believe that we need to start developing strategies to attract this group to avail the quitting services. The quitting services are not user-friendly to this age group and we still have to work on this and in the next round we might get a better quitting rate,” she pointed out.
“We have regular inspections at the shops. Although, the minimum age to get tobacco products is 18, some people get it illegally as some of the small shops still keep selling it. Anyone who sells the products to people below the age of 18, have to face legal process,” added Elkhatim.
