Tobacco Chewing, Smoking and Health Knowledge: Evidence from Bangladesh

Unlike the substance abuse studies in developed countries, tobacco consumption and its adverse effects in developing countries are poorly studied. The objective of this paper is to identify which factors influence individuals' decision to smoke cigarettes, chew tobacco and their knowledge about the health hazards of tobacco use. To allow for the potential correlation among smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco, and health knowledge, we estimate a trivariate probit regression model using household survey data from Bangladesh. For both chewing tobacco and smoking, the results show how the probabilities of uninformed tobacco user and uninformed nonuser vary across different demographic groups.