Prevalence and workplace correlates of tobacco smoking among male expatriate workers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Immigrant populations in Saudi Arabia face significant health inequalities, including higher smoking prevalence and lower tobacco cessation rate, but little is known about smoking among expatriate workers.

To identify the prevalence and workplace correlates of current smoking to enable targeted anti-smoking interventions.

A cross-sectional survey of 4575 male expatriate workers was used to investigate the associations between self-reported tobacco smoking, sociodemographic characteristics, industry and occupation groups, health insurance status and overall health status using logistic regression analyses.

Current smoking prevalence was 22.9% among male expatriate workers, which was lower than the estimated prevalence in the general population (25.9%). Factors significantly associated with current smoking included being married but not living with family [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) =1.278, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.048-1.560), health insurance coverage (AOR = 1.326, 1.124-1.565), manual (AOR=1.600, 1.234-2.075) and unskilled (AOR=1.788, 1.341-2.383) occupations, monthly income > 2000 Saudi riyal and duration of stay ≥ 1 year.

Concerted efforts at the national (health policies)and employers' levels are required to reduce smoking prevalence among male expatriate workers, including provision of comprehensive health insurance with tobacco cessation therapy as benefits, enforcement of workplace smoking ban, anti-tobacco heal th programmes and web/telephone smoking cessation counselling.