Population attributable risk for multimorbidity among adult women in India: Do smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco and consuming alcohol make a difference?

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 11; p. e0259578
• Main Authors: Mishra, Vivek K, Srivastava, Shobhit, T, Muhammad, Murthy, P V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 03.11.2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Alcohol; Alcohol Drinking - mortality; Alcohol use; Alcohols; Asthma; Biology and Life Sciences; Bivariate analysis; Blood pressure; Censuses; Chewing; Comorbidity; Developing countries; Diabetes; Drug use; Female; Health aspects; Health risks; Health surveys; Humans; Hypertension; India - epidemiology; LDCs; Mastication; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Morbidity; Multimorbidity; Obesity; People and Places; Population; Quality of life; Questionnaires; Regression analysis; Risk; Risk factors; Rural areas; Sample size; Smoke; Smoking; Smoking and women; Social Sciences; Socioeconomic factors; Statistical analysis; Subgroups; Supervision; Thyroid gland; Tobacco; Tobacco Smoking - mortality; Tobacco, Smokeless; Urban areas; Womens health; Young Adult; India; Mumbai India
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259578

The present study aims to estimate the prevalence and correlates of multimorbidity among women aged 15-49 years in India. Additionally, the population attributable risk for multi-morbidity in reference to those women who smoke tobacco, chew tobacco, and consume alcohol is estimated. The data was derived from the National Family Health Survey which was conducted in 2015-16. The effective sample size for the present paper 699,686 women aged 15-49 years in India. Descriptive statistics along with bivariate analysis were used to do the preliminary analysis. Additionally, binary logistic regression analysis was used to fulfil the objectives. About 1.6% of women had multimorbidity in India. The prevalence of multimorbidity was high among women from southern region of India. Women who smoke tobacco, chew tobacco and consume alcohol had 87% [AOR: 1.87CI: 1.65, 2.10], 18% [AOR: 1.18; CI: 1.10, 1.26] and 18% [AOR: 1.18; CI: 1.04, 1.33] significantly higher likelihood to suffer from multi-morbidity than their counterparts respectively. Population Attributable Risk for women who smoke tobacco was 1.2% (p<0.001), chew tobacco was 0.2% (p<0.001) and it was 0.2% (p<0.001) among women who consumed alcohol. The findings indicate the important role of lifestyle and behavioural factors such as smoking and chewing tobacco and consuming alcohol in the prevalence of multimorbidity among adult Indian women. The subgroups identified as at increased risk in the present study can be targeted while making policies and health decisions and appropriate comorbidity management can be implemented.