A Health Education Intervention Study on Tobacco Consumption Among the Urban Slum Residents of Central India

BACKGROUND: Tobacco is one of the world's leading avoidable causes of premature death, disease, and disability. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) survey 2020, there are about 120 million tobacco users in India, and WHO estimates that about 4.9 million die due to tobacco annually, and that by 2020 it will be the principal cause of death and disability. This study is done with objectives to access the prevalence of tobacco consumption, evaluate the impact of health education and intervention. METHODS: It was community-based health educational interventional study conducted in urban slum setting in Bhopal India, comprising 1598 subjects, and out of these 520 participants were assessed for final outcome with 3 months study duration. A predesigned, pretested questionnaire proforma was developed containing the study variables including socio-demographic, education, age, occupation, type of tobacco product consumed and so on and distributed to all study participants in pre-interventional phase and only in tobacco consumers of post-interventional phase and then was finally evaluated. RESULTS: The prevalence of tobacco use was 32.50% among the tobacco user; 87% were males and rest were females. In post-interventional phase there was a significant difference (P < 0.0001) observed in tobacco consumption frequency, impact of staring with criticism, condemnation, denigration and total number of tobacco quitter. CONCLUSION: After the health educational interventional motivation, majority of users are ready to quit, so we have to help them in quitting which must include the effectual intervention to control the tobacco use by making an effective strong policy by increasing their knowledge by means of IEC and health education.