Project Details

In 2009, ICR and researchers from the National Institute for Research on Reproductive Health, Mumbai, a center of the Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR), received three years of funding to study a "slum" in Mumbai. The location includes a mix of people from Maharashtra and from the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, which is typical of many areas in India. Fieldwork for the study began in February of 2010. During this early qualitative phase, the study will identify smokeless tobacco outlets and the forms of smokeless tobacco available in the study community or nearby. Researchers will conduct indepth interviews with community experts and women users about smokeless tobacco practices and reproductive health. Following this phase, researchers will survey a larger sample of 400 smokeless tobacco users in 2011 -2012.

The field team has mapped every street and bylane in the study community of 20,000, and has identified over 200 tobacco outlets in this small geographic location. They have photographed many different forms of tobacco and recorded cost per unit as well as purchasing patterns. There is some difference of opinion as to how many women are perceived to be using smokeless tobacco products. The general feedback at this early stage is that paan use is widespread, gutka is used by both women and men, and mishri is used only by women, and is also fairly widespread.