International Resource Center

On December 22, Bangladesh became the second country to release final results from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS). This standard global survey tracks tobacco use, exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and tobacco control measures.

Highlights from the GATS Bangladesh survey include:

• 41.3 million adults are current tobacco users (43.3 percent)
• 7 in 10 current smokers plan to or are thinking about quitting and 47.3 percent made an attempt to quit in the last 12 months
• 74 percent of current smokers thought about quitting because of warning labels
• 11.5 million workers (63 percent of workers) are exposed to tobacco smoke at the workplace
• 45 percent of adults are exposed to tobacco smoke in public places

Thirteen countries besides Bangladesh participated in the first round of GATS: Thailand, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam.