Medical Science
Volume 24, Issue 101, January - February, 2020
GATS core survey in a highly urbanized city
Jo Ann Andoy Galvan1♦, Donnabel Tubera-Panes2
1School of Medicine, Taylor’s University, Lakeside Campus, Selangor, Malaysia
2City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit, Health Services Office, Baguio City, Philippines
♦Corresponding author
School of Medicine,
Taylor’s University,
Lakeside Campus, Selangor,
Malaysia
Email: JoAnnAndoy.Galvan@taylors.edu.my
ABSTRACT
The Core Adult Tobacco Survey (CATS) was developed from the Philippine Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), which was a
nationally representative household survey of all non-institutionalized men and women aged 15 years and older to determine
smoking prevalence at the city level. Baguio City has no local baseline data to evaluate effectiveness of its anti smoking programs.
We investigated the prevalence of tobacco smoking among the residents of Baguio City in the year 2012. There were 100
households included in the study and 162 individual respondents completed the interview. The overall proportion of cigarette
smoking was 27.2%. This was similar with the prevalence of smoking in the country (29.7%) in 2009, however has significantly better
tobacco control indicators such as lesser exposure at workplace19.4%, (χ2 = 8.42; p=.002), higher proportion of smokers receiving brief cessation advice 68% (χ2=10.77; p <.001), lower proportion of respondents seeing tobacco advertising 34% (χ2 = 15.61;
p<.001) and tobacco promotions 32.1% (χ2 = 93.70; p=<.001), within the city. This baseline prevalence provides useful information
to the policy makers for reviewing policies and program formulation.
Keywords: GATS; Philippines; smoking; Baguio City; Health intervention
Medical Science, 2020, 24(101), 376-385
