Tobacco Prevalence in Africa La Prévalence du Tabac en Afrique

Global Youth Tobacco Surveys (GYTS) in Nigeria-Abuja (2008)

Prevalence
12.0% of students had ever smoked cigarettes
Boy=15.1%, Girl=8.0%
15.4% currently use any tobacco product
Boy=19.2%, Girl=11.1%
3.5% currently smoke cigarettes
Boy=5.6%, Girl=1.3%
13.9% currently use other tobacco products
Boy=16.9%, Girl=10.7%
13.4% of never smokers are likely to initiate smoking next year

Epidemiology of Tobacco Smoking in North East Nigeria

An interesting study directed by Desalu Olufemi published on the Internet Journal of Epidemiology.
More than a third of this study population smokes tobacco as cigarette or pipe. This is worrisome and is a great cause for concern because of its negative impact on the health of our population. The result from the Nigerian tobacco survey in 2002 is a gross underestimation of tobacco use. The problem of underestimation is an issue in most of developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

The prevalence of male smoking was 45.3% while female was 18.4% giving a ratio of 3 to1, this is similar to many other studies.