The Relationship between Disposable Daily Allowance and Prevalance of Smoking Among 2nd year and 3rd year High School Students in Esteban Abada High School Manaila 6

ABSTRACT : Cigarette smoking is considered to be the leading preventable cause of death amd morbidities in the world. Health policies have been crafted to control the tobacco epidemic especially among the youth among these laws is the R>A. 9334 aka Sin Tax Law, an act that imposes a four - tiereed scpecific tas system on cigerattes to make it unaffordable to the youth, thus preventing them to start smoking. This study aims to assess the relationship of students daily allowance and prevalence of smoking to evaluate the effectiveness of R>A 9334 also known as the Sin Tax Law in restricting cigarette affordability to minors. A cross sectional study design was employed. All the students in 2nd and 3rd year levels of Esteban Abada High School (EAHS) were included in the study totaling 765 respondents. The amount of disposable daily allowance was determined by subtracting the expenses on food and transportation from daily allowance. This was categorized into High (PHP 41 and above) andLow (PHP 0-40). Out of 765 respomdents the prevalence of smoking is 12.9%. Majority of the smokers (84.8%) have low amount of disposable daily allowance. Also , most of the smokers (56%) buy their own cigarettes and (63%) of them do this by using the money from thier own cigerattes and (63%) of them do this using the money from their daily allowance. Most of those who buy their own cigarettes (72.4%) only need PHP 1-5 to buy cigarettes per transaction and more than half of them (56.3%) smoke 1-2 days a week, followed by 23% who smoke everyday. Majority (60.9%) of smokers think that price of cigarette is just enough / appropriate while 27.6% think that it is affordable and only 8.1% think that it is expensive. 56

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