ABSTRACT

Understanding smoking and smokeless tobacco usage in Siddharthanagar, Province Five, Nepal

Following the Tobacco Product Control and Regulation Act (TPCR) of 2010, several regulations have been enacted to reduce tobacco prevalence in Nepal. One such regulation adopted to curb tobacco prevalence was the restrictions in public smoking. In this study, we aim to assess the consequential impact of restricting smoking in public places towards smokeless tobacco usage among smokers. A research team from the University of New Mexico’s (UNM) Nepal Study Center (NSC) along with the support from Pratiman-Neema Memorial Foundation (PNMF) recently conducted study to understand their smoking behaviors and smokeless tobacco use of residents of Siddharthanagar. This study aims to utilize the information gathered from this survey to understand the scope of smokeless tobacco consumption following restrictions in public smoking. The results of this study would ideally provide information regarding the effectiveness of public policies aimed towards reducing tobacco prevalence. Furthermore, we envision that this study would generate localized evidence needed for future policy considerations aimed towards reducing tobacco prevalence.

Research Team Investigators and Collaborative Team: The project team consists of Dr. Alok K. Bohara (Professor, Department of Economics, UNM), Aakrit Joshi, Niraj Khatiwada, and M. Mashiur Rahman (Ph. D. Candidate, Department of Economics, UNM). We acknowledge the help provided by our collaborator’s Lumbini Center for Sustainability (LCS) and their research & survey team (Ms. Swati Thapa, Mr. Dharma KC, Prakash Rayamajhi, Anup Poudel, Sharada Pathak and the PNMF & PNC college staff and several field supervisors, enumerators, & data coders).