Smoking behavior and its impact on quality of life among social assistance recipient in East Java, Indonesia

Introduction:
Previous studies revealed that smoking behavior was significantly associated with poverty. Surprisingly, a study found that recipients of governmental social assistance tend to have higher cigarette consumption compared to the non-recipients. Smoking behavior among social assistance recipients would lead to inefficiency of the social assistance itself. Rather, it might result in higher poverty level.

Objectives:
This study aimed to analyse smoking behavior and its impacts on the quality of life among social assistance recipients.

Methods:
This study used a qualitative method with a rapid-assessment-procedure (RAP) study design. The data were collected using in-depth interview to 20 social assistance recipients from 20 households living in East Java Provinces. There were four districts from two cities were chosen as study location.

Results:
All informants in this study had at least one family member who is smoker. Cigarette is one of must-buy things every single day in the households. Cigarette expenditure among the households exceed the half of daily expenditure such as foods and school pocket money. Smoking behavior among the heads of the households replaced important needs such as nutritious foods. Additionally, most of the respondents are still living in a poor condition. Most of the informants stated that the current cigarette price is affordable. Therefore, they kept buying cigarettes although they are in a poor condition.

Conclusion(s):
Smoking behavior among social assistance recipients is common. Affordable price of cigarettes makes the household keep buying cigarettes although the family have to take less nutritious foods due to the shifting. Stronger regulation is needed to prevent the poor especially the recipients of social assistance. One of the recommended policies is by raising tax of tobacco products to optimum.