Socioeconomic Inequalities in Alcohol and Tobacco Consumption: A National Ecological Study in Mexican Adolescents

• Published in: TheScientificWorld 2023, Vol.2023, p.3604004-10
• Main Authors: Ávila-Burgos, Leticia, Guzmán-Saldaña, Rebeca, Márquez-Corona, María de Lourdes, Pontigo-Loyola, América Patricia, Márquez-Rodríguez, Sonia, Mora-Acosta, Mariana, Acuña-González, Gladys Remigia, Hernández-Morales, Antonio, Medina-Solís, Carlo Eduardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Addictions; Adolescent; Adolescents; Age groups; Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology; Alcohol use; Alcoholic beverages; Alcoholism; Alcohols; Child; Cigarettes; Consumption; Disease; Drinking of alcoholic beverages; Drugs and youth; Ecological studies; Elementary school students; Elementary schools; Ethanol; Humans; Income; Mortality; Poverty; Public health; Sanitation; Sewage; Smoking; Smoking and youth; Social factors; Socioeconomic Factors; Socioeconomics; Students; Teenagers; Tobacco; Tobacco Use - epidemiology; Youth
• ISSN: 2356-6140; 1537-744X; 1537-744X
• DOI: 10.1155/2023/3604004

Alcohol and cigarettes are the psychoactive substances that adolescents use most frequently. When both addictions are combined, they carry the worst burden of disease globally. The objective of this study was to identify whether socioeconomic factors correlate with alcohol and tobacco consumption in Mexican adolescents aged 10 years or more and to establish the relationship in the consumption between the two substances. This ecological study utilized data describing alcohol and tobacco consumption among adolescents aged 10–16 years (n = 48,837 ≈ N = 11,621,100). Having ever consumed any alcohol-containing beverage constituted alcohol consumption. Smoking a cigarette within 30 days constituted cigarette consumption. For both variables, the state-level percentages reported in the survey were used. Diverse socioeconomic variables were collected from official sources. Data on the prevalence of tobacco use and alcohol consumption were entered into an Excel database estimated for each of the states of the Mexican Republic, as well as the socioeconomic variables. We performed the analysis using Stata 14. Consumption prevalence was 15.0% for alcohol and 4.2% for tobacco. Alcohol consumption was not correlated with any studied socioeconomic variable (p>0.05). The prevalence of tobacco consumption among elementary school students correlated (p