Journal of Preventive Medicine

The Prevalence of Tobacco Use among Manufacturing Workers: Findings from the Baseline Survey of the Mumbai Worksite Tobacco Control Study

Objectives: To explore the potential role of the work context associated with tobacco use patterns among manufacturing workers in India

Methods: We used cross-sectional survey data from the Mumbai Worksite Tobacco Control Study. Workers from manufacturing worksites in the greater Mumbai region were surveyed from 20 worksites that were recruited between July 2012 and July 2013 on rolling basis for a randomized controlled trial.

Results: A total of 6880 workers out of 7633 that employed in 20 manufacturing worksites were surveyed. Current tobacco use was higher among production (23.5%) than non-production (19.2%) workers. In contrast, past tobacco use was somewhat lower among production (6.2%) than non-production (8.4%) workers. Production workers who used smokeless tobacco were twice as likely to report their workplaces did not have a policy or rule prohibiting tobacco use as compared to smokers or non-tobacco users. The prevalence of past tobacco use - compared to current use - was associated with workers’ education, economic index and number of co-workers using tobacco.

Conclusions: The current study underscores the important role of co-workers and worksite tobacco control policies (that cover both smoking and smokeless forms) to support reductions in tobacco use among manufacturing workers.

Author(s):

Mangesh Pednekar S, Eve Nagler M, Pratibha Pawar, Glorian Sorensen, Sameer Narake, Anne Stoddard M and Prakash Gupta C

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