• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.sup1
• /
• pp.11-15
• /
• 2016

Viet Nam is a country with the highest rate of adult male smokers in the world. In 2010, the percentage of adult male smokers was 47.4%. Each year in Viet Nam, there are 40,000 lives lost from tobacco-related diseases. The Global Tobacco Youth Survey is an international standardized survey that has been conducted in more than 140 countries. To provide evidence for tobacco control, Viet Nam already conducted two rounds of GYTS in 2003 and 2007. The GYTS in 2014 is the survey's third iteration. This paper aims to document key methodological details and socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents included in the 2014 GYTS in Viet Nam. This survey followed international protocol and was conducted in 13 provinces representative of 6 geographical regions. A total of 3,430 school children, aged 13 to 15 years used a standardized answer sheet to answer 76 questions about seven tobacco-related topics, including prevalence of tobacco use, environmental tobacco smoke, access and availability, media and advertisement, cessation, knowledge and attitudes, tobacco-related school curriculum. This GYTS provides valid and reliable data for monitoring tobacco use among youth in Vietnam and is recommended to be regularly repeated.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.sup1
• /
• pp.17-23
• /
• 2016

The aim of this paper is to report the rate of current and ever cigarette smoking and explore correlates of current cigarette smoking among adolescents aged 13-15 in Viet Nam. This analysis was derived from GYTS survey, which comprised of 3,430 adolescents aged 13-15, conducted in 2014 in 13 cities and provinces of Viet Nam. We calculated the weighted rates of current and ever cigarette smoking and reported patterns of smoking behavior. We also performed logistic regression to explore correlates of current cigarette smoking behavior. The weighted rate of ever cigarette smoking was 9.5% (95% confidence interval (CI): 8.5 %-10.5%), in which the weighted rate among males (15.4%; 95% CI: 13.6%-17.0%) was higher than that among females (4.2%; 95% CI: 3.3%-5.1%). The weighted rate of current cigarette smoking was relatively low at 2.5% (95%CI: 2.0%-3.0%) with higher weighted rate among males (4.9%; 95% CI: 3.8%-5.9%) compared to the corresponding figure among females (0.2%; 95% CI: 0.0 %-0.5%). Current cigarette smoking was significantly higher among males than females, in students aged 15 versus 13 years old, and in students who had several or all close friends smoking and students with daily observation of smoking at school. For greater smoking reduction outcomes, we recommend that tobacco interventions for adolescents should consider targeting more male students at older ages, establish stricter adherence to school-based banning of cigarette smoking, engage both smoking and nonsmoking adolescents and empower adolescents to resist peer smoking influence as well as changing their norms or beliefs towards smoking benefits.