Methods: A cross-sectional survey included 3353 university students from Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, median age 20 years (interquartile range 3 years).
Results: In all five ASEAN countries, the study found a prevalence no soft drink consumption in the past 30 days of 20.3%, less than one time a day 44.7%, once a day 25.4% and two or more times a day 9.6%. In the adjusted logistic regression analysis, higher frequency of soft drink consumption (one and/or two or more times a day) was associated with externalizing behaviour (in physical fight, injury, current tobacco use, problem drinking, drug use, pathological internet use and gambling behaviour), and higher frequency of soft drink consumption (two or more times a day) was associated with depression in females, but no association was found for the general student population in relation to internalizing behaviour (depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, suicide plan, suicide attempt and sleeping problem).
Conclusions: Findings suggest that carbonated soft drink consumption is associated with a number of externalizing but not internalizing health risk behaviours.
METHODS: A life table model was constructed using published Malaysian demographic and mortality data. Our analysis was limited to male smokers due to the low smoking prevalence in females (1.1%). Male smokers aged 15-64 years were followed up until 65 years or until death. The population attributable risk, health-related quality of life decrements and relative reduction in productivity due to smoking were sourced from published data. The analysis was repeated assuming the cohorts were never smokers, and the differences in outcomes represented the health and productivity burden conferred by smoking. The cost of productivity loss was estimated based on the gross domestic product per equivalent full-time worker in Malaysia.
RESULTS: Tobacco use is highly prevalent among working-age males in Malaysia, with 4.2 million (37.5%) daily smokers among men aged between 15 and 64 years. Overall, our model estimated that smoking resulted in the loss of over 2.1 million life years (2.9%), 5.5 million (8.2%) quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and 3.0 million (4.8%) PALYs. Smoking was estimated to incur RM275.3 billion (US$69.4 billion) in loss of productivity.
CONCLUSION: Tobacco use imposes a significant public health and economic burden among working-age males in Malaysia. This study highlights the need of effective public health interventions to reduce tobacco use.