The study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute and published in the Tobacco Control journal, is based on self-reported data from 3,254 U.S. young adults ranging from 18 to 30 years of age in March 2013. The randomly selected participants completed a questionnaire about their tobacco use.
Of the participants 63 per cent were female, 17.5 per cent Hispanic and 10.1 per cent African American. The results were weighted to be more representative of the U.S. population, Science Newsline Medicine reported.
1 in 20 participants reported smoking shisha over the last 30 days before turning in the survey, and approximately 3 per cent reported smoking both cigarettes and waterpipe. 23.4 per cent of participants reported smoking cigarettes nearly every day of the 30 days before turning in the survey. Waterpipe smoking accounted for 54.9 per cent of the smoke inhaled, 20.9 per cent of tar, 10.3 per cent of carbon monoxide and 2.4 per cent in the last 30 days before turning in the survey.
A 45 minute to an hour shisha smoking session can involve 100 inhalations containing approximately 500 milliliters of smoke each. Smoking one cigarette, on the other hand, involves around 10 to 12 puffs and 50 milliliters of smoke, according to the report.
Brian A. Primack, the director of Pitt's Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health, and lead author of the study said, “Most hookah smokers in the U.S. are not daily users, whereas many cigarette smokers smoke multiple times a day, so it may seem that the vast majority of public health and policy-related interventions should be directed at cigarette smoking. What our research shows is that hookah smoking contributes significantly to the burden of tobacco smoke-related toxicants inhaled by our young people. Therefore, public health and policy efforts should explicitly address hookah smoking in addition to cigarette smoking.”