Tobacco Smoking in Islands of the Pacific Region, 2001–2013

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Figure 1. Prevalence of current smokers among students aged 13 to 15 years, by sex and Pacific island country or territory. Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; CNMI, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; FSM, Federated States of Micronesia. Sources: Global Youth Tobacco Surveys (GYTS), Youth Tobacco Survey (YTS), and Global School-Based Student Health Surveys (GSHS) conducted between 2004 and 2013. Current smoking was defined in the surveys as smoking cigarettes on at least 1 day within the previous 30 days. GYTS included manufactured cigarettes and hand rolled-cigarettes. Type of cigarette was not specified in the corresponding question in the GSHS. Prevalence among females was not reported for Niue (sample size less than 20 students). GYTS and GSHS were both undertaken in Tonga in 2010; the GYTS results are presented in the figure, and the GSHS found that 19.2% (95% CI, 15.8–23.0) of male students and 23.8% (95% CI, 20.3–27.7) of female students smoked cigarettes in the previous 30 days. Equivalent data were unavailable for French Polynesia, the Pitcairn Islands, Tokelau, and Wallis and Futuna. CIs were not applicable to the American Samoa, CNMI, Cook Islands, Niue, and Nauru results because the surveys were designed to include all members of the target student population. CIs were not reported for Tuvalu.

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Figure 2. Prevalence of current smokers among male and female students in grades 9 to 12, by survey year and Pacific island country or territory. Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; CNMI, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; RMI, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Source: Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System [YRBSS], 2001 to 2013. YRBSS results for CNMI for 2007 were obtained from Lippe et al (18). YRBSS results for RMI for 2009 were obtained from Substance Abuse Epidemiological Profile 2010 (19). Current smoking was defined as having smoked cigarettes on at least 1 day within the previous 30 days. For Guam only, 95% confidence intervals are presented because surveys in American Samoa, CNMI, Palau, and RMI were designed to include all members of the target student population.

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