• P C Gupta, C S Ray, S S Narake, K M Palipudi, D N Sinha, S Asma, and G Blutcher-Nelson.
• Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
• Indian J Cancer. 2012 Oct 1; 49 (4): 393-400.

IntroductionIndividuals who use both smoked and smokeless tobacco products (dual tobacco users) form a special group about which little is known. This group is especially relevant to India, where smokeless tobacco use is very common. The aim of this study was to characterise the profile of dual users, study their pattern of initiation to the second product, their attitudes toward quittingas well as their cessation profile.Methods And MaterialsThe GATS dataset for India was analyzed using SPSS; .ResultsIn India, dual tobacco users (42.3 million; 5.3% of all adults; 15.4% of all tobacco users) have a profile similar to that of smokers. Some 52.6% of dual users started both practices within 2 years. The most prevalent product combination was bidi-khaini (1.79%) followed by bidi-gutka (1.50%), cigarette-khaini (1.28%), and cigarette-gutka (1.22%). Among daily users, the correlation between the daily frequencies of the use of each product was very high for most product combinations. While 36.7% of dual users were interested in quitting, only 5.0% of dual users could do so. The prevalence of ex-dual users was 0.4%.ConclusionDual users constitute a large, high-risk group that requires special attention.

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