Background: Although smoking is classified as a risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes, there is a scarcity of studies on prevalence of smoking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study aims to analyze the trends of prevalence of smoking in adolescents over the COVID-19 pandemic period.
Methods: The present study used data from middle to high school adolescents between 2005 and 2021 who participated in the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBS). We evaluated the smoking prevalence (ever or daily) by year groups and estimated the slope in smoking prevalence before and during the pandemic.
Results: A total of 1,137,823 adolescents participated in the study [mean age, 15.04 years [95% confidence interval (CI) 15.03-15.06]; and male, 52.4% (95% CI 51.7-53.1)]. The prevalence of ever smokers was 27.7% (95% CI 27.3-28.1) between 2005 and 2008 but decreased to 9.8% (95% CI 9.3-10.3) in 2021. A consistent trend was found in daily smokers, as the estimates decreased from 5.4% (95% CI 5.2-5.6) between 2005 and 2008 to 2.3% (95% CI 2.1-2.5) in 2021. However, the downward slope in the overall prevalence of ever smokers and daily smokers became less pronounced in the COVID-19 pandemic period than in the pre-pandemic period. In the subgroup with substance use, the decreasing slope in daily smokers was significantly more pronounced during the pandemic than during the pre-pandemic period.
Conclusions: The proportion of ever smokers and daily smokers showed a less pronounced decreasing trend during the pandemic. The findings of our study provide an overall understanding of the pandemic's impact on smoking prevalence in adolescents. Supplementary file2 (MP4 64897 KB).
Keywords: Adolescent; COVID-19; Daily smokers; Ever smokers; Pandemic; Smoking.
© 2023. Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine.