The prevalence of hookah smokers among Belarussian children and adolescents.

Introduction: The purpose of this survey was to assess the prevalence of hookah smokers among children and adolescents aged 12-16 years in Belarus.

Methods: This survey involved 3485 people, including 1737 girls and 1726 boys, and included 6 questions from the main questionnaire of the GYTS aimed at hookah consumption. The statistical processing was performed using the SUDAAN software package; a 95% confidence interval was calculated to calculate weighted prevalence estimates and standard errors.

Results: According to the GYTS carried out in the Republic of Belarus in 2021, hookah smoking is becoming increasingly popular. The number of adolescents who have ever smoked a hookah is 9.3%. The prevalence of regular hookah smokers is quite low (0.9%). But there are justified fears that teens who have never smoked cigarettes but have tried hookah are more likely to start smoking cigarettes and become regular cigarette smokers two years later.The frequency of hookah use naturally increases with age. The number of adolescents who have ever smoked a hookah among those aged 14, 15 and 16 years (10.7%, 11.7% and 18.2%, respectively), was higher than among students aged 12 years (5.5%) or 13 years (5.6%) (p<0.001); hookah smoking was higher among students in the 9th and 10th grades (13.0% and 14.2%, respectively), then among students in the 7th grade (5.1%) (p<0.001).

Conclusions: This national survey provides the first data of prevalence of hookah smoking among children and adolescents in Belarus and allows us to conclude that the growing popularity of waterpipe tobacco smoking dictates the need for timely recommendations on waterpipe smoking policy.