This annual report - Taranaki District Health Board

2009 New Zealand Tobacco Use SurveyThe New Zealand Tobacco Use Surveys are part of the New Zealand Health Monitor, anintegrated programme of household surveys managed by the Ministry of Health. Therehave been three comprehensive national tobacco use surveys conducted in New Zealand:in 2006, 2008 and 2009. This section reviews tobacco use in young people aged 15–19years and 20–24 years using data from the 2009 New Zealand Tobacco Use Survey [121].Data Source and MethodsDefinition1. The proportion of young people aged 15–19 and 20–24 years who were current smokers2. The proportion of young people aged 15–19 and 20–24 years who were non-smokersData Source2009 New Zealand Tobacco Use Survey (NZTUS)NumeratorNumber of young people who were current smokers (current is defined as someone who has smoked morethan 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and at the time of the survey was smoking at least once a month)Number of young people who were non-smokers (including ex-smokers and those who have never smoked)DenominatorNumber of young people surveyedNotes on InterpretationThe target population for the 2009 NZTUS was the usually resident population aged 15–64 years living inprivate dwellings in New Zealand. A multi-stage, stratified, probability-proportional-to-size sampling design wasused. The design included a Pacific stratum, as well as sampling by District Health Board area and a screensample to boost the proportions of Māori, Pacific people and those aged 15–24 years.Participation in the 2009 NZTUS was voluntary, with the survey being carried out by trained interviewers fromJanuary to May 2009 using a face-to-face computer-assisted personal interview system. A total sample size of5222 people aged 15–64 years was achieved, with a weighted response rate of 71.3%. The total sampleincluded 980 Māori, 522 Pacific people, 560 Asian people and 3202 European/Other people. The survey datawere weighted so that estimates of population totals, averages and proportions were representative of the totalresident population of New Zealand [121].In the 2009 NZTUS ethnicity was self-defined with participants being able to report affiliation with multipleethnicities, using the Statistics NZ’s standard ethnicity question. Ethnicity was then outputted into four ethnicgroups: European/Other, Māori, Pacific, Asian. The ‘Other’ ethnic group (comprising mainly Middle-Eastern,Latin-American and African ethnicities) was combined with ‘European’ to avoid small number problems.Because participants could be counted in one or more of the four ethnic groups, direct comparisons betweenethnic groups are not possible, with all rate ratios being calculated by comparing each ethnic group to the totalpopulation [121].New Zealand DistributionDistribution by Age and GenderIn the 2009 NZ Tobacco Use Survey, while the proportion of females (19.1% and 31.2%)who were current smokers was higher than for males (16.9% and 30.1%) at both 15–19years and 20–24 years, in neither case did these differences reach statistical significance.The proportion of young people aged 20–24 years (30.7%) who were current smokershowever, was significantly higher than for those aged 15–19 years (18.0%) (Table 40).Distribution by Gender and EthnicityIn the 2009 NZ Tobacco Use Survey, while current smoking rates for Māori, Pacific andAsian females aged 15–19 years were higher than for males, these differences did notreach statistical significance (Figure 99). When compared to the total population rate,current smoking rates for Māori young people (RR 2.15 95% CI 1.62–2.67) weresignificantly higher, while rates for Asian young people were significantly lower (RR 0.2495% CI 0.00–0.70). Rates for Pacific (RR 1.56 95% CI 0.88–2.24) and European/Otheryoung people (RR 0.93 95% CI 0.83–1.04) were not significantly different from the totalpopulation rate for those aged 15–19 years.Tobacco Use in Young People - 216