Does Lifestyle Matter in Prevalence of Tuberculosis: Evidence from India

Santosh Gupta, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This paper attempts to examine the association between selected lifestyle indicators (smoking, alcohol drinking and chewing tobacco) and prevalence of tuberculosis in India using data from National Family Health Survey-1998-99 and 2005-06. Bivariate and Multivariate techniques were used to test the significance impact of selected lifestyle indicators on prevalence of tuberculosis among men and women aged 15-49 living in rural and urban areas of the country. The analysis shows that compared to females, higher percentage of males are consuming alcohol, smoking and chewing tobacco. It also suggest that persons from scheduled caste/scheduled tribes, poor economic status, residing in rural area and illiterate are more likely to use these substances than their respective counterparts. The logistic regression analysis shows that the variables like chewing tobacco, number of persons per room, type of house, cooking under chimney and educational status significantly influence the likelihood of tuberculosis prevalence among Indian men and women.