Accessibility statement

Tobacco smoking among people living with HIV in Uganda: understanding the problem to inform effective interventions

With effective HIV treatment, people living with HIV (PLWH) can have a near-normal life expectancy. However, many PLWH smoke with the smoking prevalence among PLWH being much higher than in the general population. PLWH who smoke are twice as likely to die prematurely as non-smoking PLWH even when receiving effective HIV treatment. Unfortunately, smoking cessation interventions that are effective in general population smokers are not effective in helping PLWH who smoke to quit. There is a pressing need to understand PLWH’s smoking behaviour including its determinants, and on this basis, develop smoking cessation interventions that are tailored to their needs.

The main objective of the study is to investigate the smoking behaviour and factors associated with current smoking status among PLWH who are in HIV care so as to inform the design of innovative and effective PLWH focused smoking cessation interventions that are implementable and scalable in Uganda.

The study will address the following specific objectives:

  1. To identify the factors associated with current smoking status among PLWH
  2. To assess the smoking patterns and behaviours among PLWH who smoke
  3. To explore facilitators and barriers of quitting smoking among current and previous PLWH smokers
  4. To determine the willingness of PLWH in HIV care who smoke to engage in subsequent smoking related intervention studies
  5. To assess health workers’ current knowledge, practice and perceptions on smoking and integration of smoking cessation interventions into HIV care programmes including the potential barriers and facilitators.
  6. To assess the opportunities and threats towards integrating smoking cessation interventions within HIV programmes from the policy makers’ perspective.

Funding

Funder: Wellcome Trust / Centre for Future Health at the University of York
Start Date December 2018
End Date September 2019

Members

Internal Staff

External Partners

Project protocol

Read the project protocol (PDF , 366kb).

Study findings

Read the study findings (PDF , 132kb).

Public Health and Society Research in the Department of Health Sciences