Northeast states alcohol consumption highest in the country: Govt Survey

Guwahati: As per the 2019-2020 Health & Family Welfare statistics, India, it is reported that northeastern states has high consumption of alcohol & tobacco. Tobacco use is the highest among men and women in the north-eastern states, including Assam. Mizoram tops the list of tobacco consumption where 77.8% of men and almost 62% of women consume tobacco.

Whereas Assam had ranked higher in terms of alcohol consumption with 26.3% of women and 59.4% of men between 15-54 years of age consume alcohol.

The percentage happens to be the highest in the country and the national percentages for the same age group are respectively 1.2 and 29.5.

However, in terms of percentage of the population accounting both men and women in the age group 15-49 years who consume alcohol at least once a week out of a total population (men and women) who drink alcohol, Assam women had scored 44.8% and men scored 51.9%.

Usually, people associate Goa with booze and partying but a higher proportion of people in Telangana consume alcohol than in the former.

And a larger percentage of men drink in Bihar, a state under prohibition, than in Maharashtra.

Gujarat and Jammu & Kashmir have recorded the least consumption of alcohol among men. There is no way of knowing if there has been any change of consumption of alcohol or tobacco since the last survey as the two data sets are not comparable.

In all the states, consumption of tobacco, including chewing tobacco and smoking, is much higher in all the states than the consumption of alcohol but it is the lowest in Kerala and Goa with 17% and 18% respectively.

Despite the established connection between smoking tobacco and oral cancer, the use of tobacco remains widely prevalent.

In India, previous studies show a higher prevalence of tobacco chewing than smoking.

Tracking of alcohol and tobacco consumption was started from the last survey with the growing recognition of the burden of non-communicable diseases in India.

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