COVID-19 & Tobacco Survey

COVID-19&tobacco logo v.3-01

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all aspects of life for a large proportion of the world’s population. There is an urgent need to understand the impact of the outbreak on wellbeing, health and healthcare both directly because of the epidemic and indirectly because of the measures introduced to prevent its spread. The needs of the population living in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) income countries such as Pakistan must be assessed and addressed to avoid widening existing global health inequalities. Pakistan is currently on an early but rising trajectory of the COVID-19 epidemic curve, and therefore assessing and monitoring the impact of COVID-19 is timely. Since July 2019, we have been conducting a population-based observational study to investigate smoking behaviours in Pakistan- the STOP survey. The first wave of the survey recruited 6,027 participants. During consent gathering, survey participants were asked if they would be willing to take part in a future telephone follow-up in six-months time. This presented us with an opportunity to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on this large nationally-representative population, in order to inform health, social care and policy responses.

Project Goals and Objectives

  • We aim to investigate the psychological, social and economic impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and its responses (e.g. social distancing measures) in a nationally-representative cohort of smokers in Pakistan.

Resources

Publications

 

Partners

 

york   uedinbrugh tconrolcell 45  spectrum

 

 logo penguin  manipal  phfof india hriday grit

 

  gcrf astra ark foundation  addis ababa