Harm reduction techniques for hookah (shisha, narghile, "water pipe") smoking of tobacco based products

Preventing and controlling water pipe smoking: a systematic review of management interventions

BACKGROUND

Water pipe smoking (WPS) is re-gaining widespread use and popularity among various groups of people, especially adolescents. Despite different adverse health effects of WPS, many of the WPS interventions have failed to control this type of tobacco smoking. This study was conducted to identify experienced management interventions in preventing and controlling WPS worldwide.

METHODS

A systematic literature review was conducted. Electronic databases were searched for recordes which were published from beginning 1990 to August 2018. Studies aiming at evaluating, at least, one intervention in preventing and controlling WPS were included in this review, followed by performing the quality assessment and data extraction of eligible studies by two independent investigators. Finally, interventions that were identified from the content analysis process were discussed and classified into relevant categories.

RESULTS

After deleting duplications, 2228 out of 4343 retrieved records remained and 38 studies were selected as the main corpus of the present study. Then, the identified 27 interventions were grouped into four main categories including preventive (5, 18.51%) and control (8, 29.62%) interventions, as well as the enactment and implementation of legislations and policies for controlling WPS at national (7, 25.92%) and international (7, 25.92%) levels.

CONCLUSION

The current enforced legislations for preventing and controlling WPS are not supported by rigorous evidence. Informed school-based interventions, especially among adolescents can lead to promising results in preventing and controlling WPS and decreasing the effects of this important social and health crisis in the global arena.

The prevalence of smoking among karbala/iraq university students in iraq in 2005

BACKGROUND

Tobacco use is considered one of the largest public health threats facing the world. The estimated number of current smokers in the world exceeds 1.3 billion, which means that one third of the world’s population above 15 years are smokers. Smoking prevalence is increasing in the developing world but monitoring of this trend is poor in these countries. Studies on smoking in Iraq are scarce, with the current smoking prevalence rate reported to be 15–25% for males and 1–10% for females in surveys conducted in the past ten years.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to find the prevalence of smoking among Karbala University students in Iraq and determine its associations with participants’ demographic and other related predictors, including other substance use behaviors, to help inform and develop future prevention and control programs.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A categorical random sample included 2298 students at Karbala University in Iraq who answered a self-completed questionnaire. The questionnaire was based on the Drug Abuse Program questionnaire and was piloted before implementation. Descriptive and analytic statistical tools (SPSS-20) were used to assess significant associations at P < 0.001 to compensate for multiple comparisons.

RESULTS

The prevalence of current smoking among Karbala University students was 10.5%, shisha smoking 4.4% and previous smoking (having ceased smoking for more than 30 days) 1.0%. Approximately half of the smokers surveyed (45.7%) started smoking before the age of 18. Smoking was positively related to male gender, increasing age, being unmarried, college, drinking alcohol, having a positive attitude toward smoking and higher fathers’ educational level.

CONCLUSION

Lifetime smoking prevalence was found to be approximately two out of ten students. Significant positive association was found between smoking and other substance use behaviours. Additionally it was associated with positive attitudes toward substance use.

Significant predictors were determined. Further studies are needed to explore the prevalence of smoking among Iraqi youths to find trends and help to guide the implementation scientifically based control and prevention programs.

A critique of recent hypotheses on oral (and lung) cancer induced by water pipe (hookah, shisha, narghile) tobacco smoking

The medical hypothesis that the mainstream smoke (the one inhaled by the user) from "water pipes" (mainly: shisha, hookah, narghile) causes oral cancer is certainly acceptable. However, most of the recent reviews on this issue, including an attempt to develop an hypothesis for hookah carcinogenesis, have not cited key references of the world available literature which, so far, generally do not support such an hypothesis. Besides, the proposal is biased since it is apparently an adaptation of the cigarette model whereas cigarette and hookah smokes are, chemically to start with, completely different. Furthermore, all water pipes, despite their striking varieties and the consequences on the chemical processes, are, according to the same cancer-hypothesis, considered as one. The reason is the use, in the cited mainstream literature, of a nominalism ("waterpipe", often in one word) which does not allow any distinction between devices. This critical article suggests to take into account all the peculiar characteristics into consideration in order to come up with another (or several other) carcinogenesis model(s). "Firmly believ[ing] that water pipe smoking can provoke lung cancer as well as oral cancer", based on what may be seen as a rather reductionist view of the issue, is not enough.