RESEARCH-INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1.docx - 1 Chapter 1...

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Introductory Paragraphs
Tobacco smoking outbreak is one of the major public health threats causing an
increase in yearly mortality and morbidity rate worldwide. It is estimated that by the year
2030, the mortality rate related to smoking would increase by 8.3 million and could
account for 10% of the total global mortality by the year 2020, which will lead to the
death of approximately one billion people if the current smoking patterns continue.
Among these tobacco smoking-related deaths, 7 million are tobacco smokers while
around 1.2 million are non-smokers who are continuously exposed to second-hand
smoke. In addition, about 80% of the 1.1 billion total number of smokers worldwide live
in low- and middle- income countries where the problem of tobacco-related illness and
death is densest (World Health Organization, 2017). Furthermore, a global survey
shows that around 25 million and 13 million of male and female adolescents
respectively use tobacco products (Tobacco Atlas, 2017).
The overall mortality and morbidity rate pertaining to tobacco smoking have
steadily declined during the past few decades in many western countries; however, in
Asia, tobacco epidemic is increasing rapidly (Zheng W. et al, 2014). About half of the
male smokers in the world currently live in three Asian countries namely China, India,
and Indonesia. In addition, Japan and Bangladesh also rank among the top 10 countries
with the largest smoking populations (GBD Tobacco Collaborators, 2015).
Consequently, Asia is not only the largest tobacco consumer but is also the largest
tobacco producer in the world (Eriksen M., Mackay J., Schluger N.W., 2015).

In line with the smoking epidemic in Asia, the Philippines, which is one of the
fastest growing country in Southeast Asia, is among the top fifty countries with high
smoking rate accounting for 25.75% (World Health Organization, 2015). According to
the results of the 2015 Global Adult Tobacco Survey, 23.8% of the adults in the country
use tobacco in any form. The prevalence of tobacco use among the adults is 22.1% and
25.3% in urban and rural areas respectively. Approximately 15.9 million of the adults in
the country currently smoke tobacco. Among of these smoking adults, 13.1 million
smoke tobacco daily corresponding to 33.9% for men and 3.6% for the women. In
addition, daily cigarette smokers consume an average of 11 cigarettes per day that
include 11.2 individuals among men and 8.6 individuals among women. The overall
average age of initiating daily cigarette smoking among ever daily smokers aged 15 ‐ 34
is 17.5 years old (Department of Health, 2015). Moreover, there are about 87,600
smoking-related deaths in the country every year. Approximately 10 Filipinos die every
hour due to tobacco smoking-related diseases which translates to 240 deaths per day
(Manila Times, 2015).