Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T15:35:59.630Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A single-blind clustered randomised controlled trial of daily record-keeping for reducing smoking tobacco expenditure among adult male household heads in rural Bangladesh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2020

Adnan M. S. Fakir*
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia, Business School, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA6009, Australia Economics and Social Sciences (ESS) Department, BRAC University, 66 Mohakhali, Dhaka1206, Bangladesh
Afraim Karim
Affiliation:
Innovations for Poverty Action, House 35, Road 7, Dhaka1212, Bangladesh
Mutasim Billah Mubde
Affiliation:
Economic Research Group, House 304, Road 19/B, New DOHS, Mohakhali, Dhaka1206, Bangladesh
Mustahsin Aziz
Affiliation:
The World Bank, Plot E 32, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Agargaon, Dhaka1207, Bangladesh
Azraf Uddin Ahmad
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Dr, Burnaby, BCV5A 1S6, Canada
*
Author for correspondence: Adnan M. S. Fakir, E-mail: adnanfakir@gmail.com

Abstract

Introduction

This study aims to assess the impact of a behavioural intervention, in the form of a self-monitoring record-keeping logbook, in reducing smoking tobacco expenditure amongst adult male household heads in rural Bangladesh.

Method

The experiment was designed as a single-blind clustered randomised controlled trial utilising two-stage random sampling. A total of 650 adult male household heads were sampled from 16 chars (riverine islands) from Gaibandha, Northern Bangladesh, with eight chars in treatment and control groups each, between November 2018 and January 2019. The intervention consisted of a logbook to record daily smoking tobacco intake for 4 weeks provided only to participants in treatment chars (n = 332) while households in control chars received nothing (n = 318).

Results

Final analysis was conducted using 222 and 210 households in the treatment and control chars respectively. The logbook intervention had a significant impact (P-value = 0.040) on reducing daily tobacco expenditure by 14% (α = 95%; CI: −0.273, −0.008) for the treatment group relative to the control group based on a difference-in-difference estimator. This is equivalent to a reduction of 20 cigarettes or 140 bidis smoked in a month.

Conclusion

Our minimal contact intervention successfully induced a reduction in smoking tobacco expenditure, which could effectively be incorporated with existing programs in the char regions of Bangladesh.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, F., Johnson, M. W., & Bickel, W. K. (2003). Delay discounting in current and never-before cigarette smokers: Similarities and differences across commodity, sign, and magnitude. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112(3), 382.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bickel, W. K., & Marsch, L. A. (2001). Toward a behavioral economic understanding of drug dependence: Delay discounting process. Addiction, 96, 7386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, A. L., Faust, R., & Ordentlich, M. (1984). Self-help smoking cessation and maintenance programs: A comparative study with 12-month follow-up by the American lung association. American Journal of Public Health, 74(11), 12121217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deveci, S. E., Deveci, F., Asik, Y., & Ozan, A. T. (2004). The measurement of exhaled carbon monoxide in healthy smokers and non-smokers. Respiratory Medicine, 98, 551556.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fakir, A. M. S. (2018). Bangladesh Chars tobacco assessment project (CTAP). Boston, USA: Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/dvn/yaav4x.Google Scholar
Fakir, A. M. S., Aziz, M., Mubde, M. B., Karim, A., Khan, A. S., Raisa, R., … Fahmin, M. (2018). Bangladesh Chars Tobacco Assessment Project (CTAP) 2018: A data note. BMC Research Notes, 11(1), 914.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Finucane, M. L., Alhakami, A., Slovic, P., & Johnson, S. M. (2000). The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 13(1), 117.3.0.CO;2-S>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glynn, T. J., Boyd, G. M., & Gruman, J. C. (1990). Essential elements of self-help/minimal intervention strategies for smoking cessation. Health Education Quarterly, 17(3), 329345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Janz, N. K., Becker, M. H., Kirscht, J. P., Eraker, S. A., Billi, J. E., & Woolliscroft, J. O. (1987). Evaluation of a minimal-contact smoking cessation intervention in an outpatient setting. American Journal of Public Health, 77(7), 805809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muraven, M. (2010). Practicing self-control lowers the risk of smoking lapse. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 24(3), 446452.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nargis, N., Ghulam Hussain, A. K. M., Goodchild, M., Quah, A. C. K., & Fong, G. T. (2018). The tobacco industry uses pricing to undermine tobacco tax policy: Evidence from Bangladesh. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: University of Waterloo.Google Scholar
Prochaska, J. O., & Velicer, W. F. (1997). The transtheoretical model of health behavior change. American Journal of Health Promotion: AJHP, 12(1), 3848.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sunstein, C. R., & Thaler, R. H. (2008). Nudge.’ The politics of libertarian paternalism. New Haven, Connecticut, USA: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
WHO. (2018). Global adult tobacco survey: Fact sheet Bangladesh 2017. Dhaka, Bangladesh: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Fakir et al. supplementary material

Table A1 and Figure A1

Download Fakir et al. supplementary material(File)
File 434.6 KB