Tobacco Consumption in Thailand: a Study of the Nonlinear Relationships Between Tobacco, Alcohol, Gambling, and Demographic Factors

• Activity Number: 165 - Statistics for Business and Financial Markets
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 31, 2017 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Pannapa Changpetch* and Dominique Haughton
• Companies: Bentley University and Bentley University
• Keywords: Tobacco consumption ; Alcohol expenditure ; Gambling expenditure ; Treenet

Abstract

This paper presents a study of household tobacco consumption in Thailand from 2006 to 2011. We investigated the nonlinear relationships between this behavior and household alcohol expenditure, household gambling expenditure, and demographic factors and used Treenet to analyse datasets drawn from socio-economic surveys. Across all the years included in the survey period, we found consistent results whereby the likelihood of tobacco consumption was higher for households with higher expenditure on alcohol both consumed at home and away from home, located in the South or the Northeast, with lower income, a head of household with a lower educational level, a male head of household, and a head of household employed by a private company. We also found that over the focal period of the study, households with an older head were more likely to consume tobacco in the first half of the study period but this relationship changed such that households with a younger head, i.e. aged 18-25 years old, showed the highest likelihood of consuming tobacco by the end of the study period.