The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) is the global standard for systematically monitoring adult tobacco use (smoking and smokeless) and tracking key tobacco control indicators. GATS enhances countries, capacity to design, implement and evaluate tobacco control programs. It will also assist countries to fulfill their obligations under the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to generate comparable data within and across nations.
GATS provides information on respondents’ background characteristics, tobacco use (smoking and smokeless), cessation, secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure, economics of tobacco smoking, media and knowledge, attitudes & perceptions towards tobacco use.
Figure 1. Tobacco Use, Philippines: 2009 & 2015
Tobacco Use
- The use of tobacco prevalence significantly decreased among adults from 2009 to 2015, from 29.7 percent to 23.8 percent overall, 49.5 percent to 41.9 percent male and 10.1 percent to 5.8 percent female. This represents a 19.9 percent, 15.3 percent and 42.8 percent relative decline in tobacco use prevalence for overall, males and females, respectively.
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From 2009 to 2015, more tobacco users were males compared to females with a difference 39.4 percent for 2009 and 36.1 percent for 2015.
Cessation for Smoking
- The percentage of current smoker who are interested in quitting and the percentage of smokers who attempted to quit both increased significantly. From 60.4 percent and 47.9 percent in 2009 to 76.7 percent and 52.2 percent in 2015 for those who are interested in quitting and for those who attempted, respectively. This represents a significant increase of 16.3 percent for the interested ones and 4.3 percent for the ones who attempted.
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On the other hand, the proportion of smokers who successfully quit in the past 12 months preceding the survey largely remained unchanged from 2009 to 2015 with the percentage of 4.5 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively.
Figure 2. Cessation for Smoking, Philippines: 2009 & 2015
Secondhand Smoke (SHS) Exposure
- For both 2009 and 2015 survey periods, the place where greatest exposure to SHS was home with a total of 54.4 percent and 34.7 percent, respectively This is followed by workplace and government.
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Places where respondents were exposed to SHS all declined. The largest decrease occurred in government buildings that dropped by 46.7 percent.
Figure 3. Secondhand Smoke Exposure, Philippines: 2009 & 2015
SHS Exposure by Adults from Public Places
- Among those adults who visited public places, bars/nightclubs were the most exposed to SHS with a total of 86.3 percent. This was followed by public transportation, restaurants, government buildings, schools and health care facilities with 37.6 percent, 21.9 percent, 13.6 percent, 10.9 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively.
Figure 4. Exposure to Tobacco Use by Adults from Public Places, Philippines: 2015
Figure 6. Influence of Advertising, Promotions and Sponsorship to Tobacco Users, Philippines:
2015
Knowledge, Attitudes and Perceptions of Adults towards Tobacco Use
- For the year 2015, among adults, 95% believed that smoking causes serious illness. The illness that they believed will mostly occur by the use of tobacco is lung cancer followed by tuberculosis, heart attack and stroke.
Figure 7. Knowledge, Attitudes and Perceptions towards Tobacco Use, Philippines: 2015
Technical Notes
Prevalence - Refers to the fact or state of happening often.
Cessation - Refers to the stopping of a process or activity.
Expenditure - It is the payment made in the course of achieving a result.
