Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Research Article

Predictors of Substance Use in the Tribal Population of Northeast India: Retrospective Analysis of a Cross-Sectional Survey

Himanshu K Chaturvedi^*, Ram C Bajpai and Arvind Pandey

National Institute of Medical Statistics, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India

*Corresponding Author:

Himanshu K Chaturvedi
National Institute of Medical Statistics
Indian Council of Medical Research
New Delhi, India
Tel: +91-11-26588928
Fax: +91-11-26589635
E-mail: chaturvedi_icmr@yahoo.com

Received Date: July 28, 2016; Accepted Date: September 21, 2016; Published Date: September 28, 2016

Citation: Chaturvedi HK, Bajpai RC, Pandey A (2016) Predictors of Substance Use in the Tribal Population of Northeast India: Retrospective Analysis of a Cross-Sectional Survey. J Addict Res Ther 7: 295. doi:10.4172/2155-6105.1000295

Copyright: © 2016 Chaturvedi HK, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Objective: Substance misuse is a wide-spread phenomenon that affects all levels of society. The household survey data of different tribes from Arunachal Pradesh, India were used to present the prevalence of substance use in different tribes and to examine the association between socio-demographic factors and substance use. Materials and method: A sample of 3421 tribal individuals aged 15 years and older was extracted from earlier conducted substance use survey in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to determine factors associated with substance use. Results: The prevalence of any substance use was reported to 53.1% and significantly higher among men (67%) than among women (38%). Alcohol was started at early teenage (14 years) and accepted socially as a ‘holy drink’ shared with family members and others. Tobacco and opium was mainly introduces by their friends. Prevalence of any substance intake was significantly higher among Tutsa tribe (77%), aged 45 years or older (≥ 75%), among illiterates (61%), indigenous religion (71%), widow/widower (71%) and household size with 1-3 persons (63%). Subsequently, regression analysis showed that any substance use was significantly associated with ethnic group, religion, age, education, occupation and marital status of different tribal communities. Conclusion: Overall, substance use was very high among the tribal people, indicating strong social, cultural and traditional belief. These finding has major policy implications, including the need to focus substance use interventions to young age tribal people.

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