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Tobacco Use Among Adults Initiating Treatment for HIV Infection in Rural Uganda

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Abstract

We conducted a longitudinal study of tobacco use among adults initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Mbarara, Uganda where 11 % of men and 3 % of women use tobacco according to the 2011 Demographic and Health Survey. In a prospective cohort, self-reported tobacco use was assessed before starting ART and reassessed every 3–4 months. Plasma cotinine, a nicotine metabolite, was measured in a subset of adults pre-ART to verify self-report. Among 496 subjects, 50 (10 %) reported current tobacco use (20 % of men, 6 % of women). Most (53 %) adults with elevated cotinine levels (>15 ng/mL) reported no tobacco use. By 6 months after ART initiation, 33 % of tobacco users had quit (95 % CI 20–46 %). By 5 years, 64 % quit (95 % CI 47–77 %). Self-reported tobacco use among rural Ugandans starting ART was twice as common as among the local background population and use may be underreported. ART initiation could be an opportunity for tobacco cessation interventions.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Martin A. Javors. Dr. Javors conducted the cotinine assays for the subset that was tested and provided helpful feedback on the reporting of the cotinine results. The Ugandan AIDS Rural Treatment Outcomes study was funded by U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 MH-054907, K23 MH-079713, K23 MH-079713-03S1, and P30 AI-027763. Dr. Kruse was supported by Grant T32HP12706-03-00 from the Health Resources and Services Administration for the Harvard General Medicine Fellowship and the Ryoichi Sasakawa Fellowship Fund. Dr. Bangsberg was funded by NIH Grant K24 MH87227. Dr. Haberer was funded by NIH Grant K23 087228. The funders of these grants had no role in study design, conduct, data analysis, interpretation, or manuscript preparation, review, or approval. An earlier version of this work was presented as a poster at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco 19th Annual meeting on March 16, 2013 in Boston, MA

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 50 Staniford Street, 9th Floor, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Gina R. Kruse, Jessica E. Haberer & Nancy A. Rigotti

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Gina R. Kruse & Nancy A. Rigotti

  3. Tobacco Research and Treatment Center, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Gina R. Kruse & Nancy A. Rigotti

  4. Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    David R. Bangsberg & Jessica E. Haberer

  5. Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda

    David R. Bangsberg & Conrad Muzoora

  6. Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    David R. Bangsberg

  7. Department of Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Judith A. Hahn & Peter W. Hunt

  8. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Judith A. Hahn, John P. Bennett & Jeffrey N. Martin

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  1. Gina R. Kruse
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Correspondence to Gina R. Kruse.

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Kruse, G.R., Bangsberg, D.R., Hahn, J.A. et al. Tobacco Use Among Adults Initiating Treatment for HIV Infection in Rural Uganda. AIDS Behav 18, 1381–1389 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-014-0737-8

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