Teenage smoking in Ukraine

Darya Semyonova

The aim is to estimate the peculiarities of smoking of 14-17 age group in Ukraine.

Data of Global Youth Tobacco Survey, two national surveys on smoking and quitline register is used.

According to 2000 survey the largest proportion of daily smokers is among those who started smoking between the ages of 10 and 14. The later a person starts to smoke, the lower the probability that one becomes a daily smoker, and the higher the probability that one quits smoking by a certain age.

From 26 to 28% of Ukrainian male teenagers are never smokers, 36% are experimenters. Smoking prevalence among males is 23-44% and 16% among females.

Average number of cigarettes smoked per day is 8-9.

Average price of cigarette pack smoked by teenagers is higher than average for both sexes, and for females it is the highest in all age groups.

Male teenagers have the lowest cigarette expenses compared to other age groups, while females have the highest. Expenses grow with the increase of the number of cigarettes smoked in older age groups, while those male teenagers who smoke 16-20 cigarettes per day spend less money than those who smoke 10-15 cigarettes.

Teenagers from 14 to 17 years old smoke 3.3% of all cigarettes consumed in Ukraine. The proportion of expenses born by them is estimated to be 4.76% of the total amount.

58.0% of current teenage smokers stated that they desire to stop smoking. Over 6 in 10 current smokers (62.3%) reported that they had tried to stop smoking during the past year but failed.

According to quitline register teenagers constitute similar part of those who applied to get help in smoking cessation (3-6%) to the proportion they constitute in smoking population (5-7%).

In case of price increase all teenagers expect to reduce smoking with a higher probability than adults. Teenagers from poor families tend to reduce or quit smoking more that the teenagers from rich families.