Prevalence and sociodemographic determinants of tobacco use among adults in Pakistan: findings of a nationwide survey conducted in 2012.

BACKGROUND: Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable mortality. The World Health Organization recommends that countries should monitor tobacco use regularly. In Pakistan, the last national study on smoking in the general population was conducted in 2002 to 2003. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of a nationally representative sample of men and women living in rural and urban areas of four main provinces of Pakistan from March through April 2012. Face-to-face in-house interviews were undertaken using a pre-tested structured questionnaire that asked about smoking and other forms of tobacco use. Multistage stratified random area probability sampling was used. To determine the national prevalence of tobacco use, the sample was weighted to correspond to rural-urban population proportions in each of the four provinces as in the 1998 census conducted by Pakistan's Population Census Organization. Associations between sociodemographic variables and tobacco use were investigated using multivariable robust regression. RESULTS: Out of 2,644 respondents (1,354 men and 1,290 women), 354 men and 4 women reported being current cigarette smokers. The weighted prevalence of current cigarette smoking was 15.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]; 11.2, 19.3) overall, 26.6% (95% CI: 19.1, 34.1) among males, and 0.4% (95% CI: -0.2, 1.0) among females. Among females, 1.8% (95% CI: 0.4, 3.1) used any smoked tobacco and 4.6% (95% CI: 1.8, 7.4) used any smokeless tobacco daily or on some days of the week. Among males, odds of current cigarette smoking decreased with increasing level of education (OR = 0.75; 95% CI: 0.68, 0.84) and increased with having a father who used tobacco (OR = 2.11; 95% CI: 1.39, 3.22) after adjusting for other sociodemographic characteristics. Lower household income was associated with current cigarette smoking among rural males only (odds ratio [OR] = 0.67; 95% CI: 0.48, 0.92 per category increase in monthly household income). CONCLUSION: A large proportion of males smoked cigarettes. Cigarette use was negligible among females, but they used other forms of tobacco. Low education was a determinant of cigarette smoking among males irrespective of socioeconomic status and area of residence. Tobacco control campaigns should target uneducated and rural poor men and monitor all forms of tobacco used by the population

Public perception of river fish biodiversity in four European countries

Public support for biodiversity conservation is shaped by people's values and their knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes toward the environment. We conducted the first multinational representative survey of the general public's perceptions of river fish biodiversity in France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden. For the online survey, 1000 respondents per country were randomly selected from large panels following country‐specific quotas set on age, gender, and educational level. Questions covered people's level of knowledge, beliefs, values, and attitudes toward river fish, environmental threats, and conservation measures. We found that the public had limited knowledge of freshwater fishes. Two non‐native species, rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), were widely perceived as native, whereas native Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) was mostly classified as native in Scandinavia and largely as non‐native in central Europe. These results suggest an extinction of experience paralleling the extirpation or decline of salmon stocks in countries such as Germany and France. Respondents thought pollution was the dominant threat to riverine fish biodiversity. In reality, habitat loss, dams, and the spread of non‐native fishes are equally important. Despite limited biological knowledge, respondents from all countries held an overwhelmingly proecological worldview, supported conservation stocking, and appreciated native fishes, although only a minority interacted with them directly. Differences among the 4 countries related to several conservation issues. For example, threats to biodiversity stemming from aquaculture were perceived as more prevalent in Norway compared with the other 3 countries. Promoting fish conservation based on charismatic species and use values of fishes may work well in countries with a strong economic and cultural link to the freshwater environment, such as Norway. In countries where people rather abstractly care for nature, focusing conservation messaging on broader ecosystem traits and non‐use values of fishes is likely to win more support