The extensive take up of the tobacco use habit among adolescence is a global phenomenon. But it’s also a leading public health concern in Africa.
The Global Youth Tobacco Survey for Nigeria reported that the proportion of never-smokers who were likely to initiate smoking within a year among girls was as high as 17.8% in some cities.
Similarly, a study conducted among in-school adolescents in Lagos, Nigeria, reported that 18.6% of the participants intended to smoke in the future.
Although getting smokers to quit is a common way of reducing smoking prevalence, another way is to prevent people, especially adolescents who already have the future smoking intention, from initiating the habit.
There have been ongoing efforts in Africa to encourage adolescents to quit smoking. But these have had limited successes.
Young people who have poor knowledge are more likely than those with adequate knowledge to nurse the intention to smoke and may eventually initiate the habit.
This is where Nigerian dentist and researcher, Omotayo Fagbule comes in.
He wants to take his shot at contributing to reduce the number of adolescence getting into the habit of using tobacco products. He plans to investigate how prevalent plans to take up tobacco use is among Nigerian youngsters and whether education will assist in reducing the number of youth taking up the practice.
He is one of the 12 Tobacco Control Research Agenda awardees who will get USD5000 to look into a tobacco control research area.
Studies conducted in Ibadan, Nigeria, have reported that a high proportion of adolescents generally have poor knowledge about the health effects of tobacco use.
The high proportion of adolescents with sub-optimal knowledge and positive attitude towards tobacco smoking would suggest that many of them may currently have the intention to smoke.
The planned study will be an experimental one to be conducted using the randomized study design, with health education as the means of intervention. The study will be carried out in Ibadan metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria. Ibadan is the capital city of Oyo State and is divided into the Ibadan metropolis.
There are a many secondary schools, both public and privately owned, in the metropolis of Ibadan. Currently, tobacco-related lessons are not a part of the secondary school curriculum. The study will be carried out among in-school young people.