Recipient: Curatio International Foundation, Georgia
Duration:  May 2002 to March 2003

Background

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco use is one of the greatest public health problems in the European region.  The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have witnessed a dramatic rise in premature mortality in middle-aged men, which is due predominantly to cancer and cardiovascular disease caused by tobacco use.  WHO estimates that there are more than 700,000 deaths per year related to tobacco use in Central and Eastern Europe, and two-thirds of these deaths occur during the productive middle-age.  Smoking prevalence rates are extremely high among men and smoking among women in the region is rising at alarming rates.  In addition to being faced with rising tobacco use and associated negative health outcomes, the new independent states of the former Soviet Union have struggled with rising poverty since the early 1990s when they embarked on the transition process to a market economy.  Within this context, this study will assess the economic burden of smoking at the household level in seven new independent states of Central and Eastern Europe.
 

Overall Objective

The overall objective is to assess the economic burden of smoking at the household level in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, and Tajikistan, in order to provide critical information that will support the development of tobacco control policies in these countries.

Specific Objectives

1.    To assess variations in household expenditures on tobacco as a proportion of total monthly household consumption as well as in relation to expenditures on food across the different consumption quintile groups to be defined through the World Bank’s Living Standard Monitoring Survey data sets in each of the seven selected countries.

2.    To investigate variations in household expenditures on tobacco as a proportion of total monthly household consumption as well as in relation to expenditures on food by household structure (i.e., number, age, gender, employment, and education level of household members).

3.    To investigate the association between household expenditures on both tobacco and alcohol as a proportion of expenditures on food.

4.    To define the factors that are independently associated with a high share of household expenditures on tobacco, especially among the poor.

5.    To derive critical information that can contribute to policy formulation to decrease smoking prevalence in the seven selected countries.
 

Expected Outcomes

The researchers will develop recommendations for national tobacco control policies in the seven countries studied, based on the information generated on household-level tobacco consumption and expenditures.  The research has the potential to extend to other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which may adopt similar approaches to studying the economic implications of tobacco use at the household level.  The research may also provide new insight at the international level into the behavioural and economic factors influencing tobacco consumption by different income and population groups.