Water Pipe Smoking Increasingly Popular Among Women, Study Finds
For release: May 6, 2004
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey

Smoking tobacco through a water pipe, or hookah, generally is viewed in a more positive light than smoking cigarettes, particularly for women, according to one of the first studies on water pipe and cigarette smoking to look at social attitudes and gender.

The study, published in the April issue of Preventive Medicine, involved two surveys given last year to male and female students at Aleppo University in Syria and customers at Aleppo cafes and restaurants that permit smoking using hookahs filled with fruit-flavored tobacco. They surveys found that hookah users, especially women, were enthusiastic about what they viewed as the hookah's positive aspects, including its traditional, familiar, social and attractive look.

The surveys were conducted by the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies, a National Institutes of Health-funded tobacco control research center involving collaboration between researchers from the University of Memphis, Virginia Commonwealth University and Aleppo School of Medicine.

Although the study focused on water pipe smoking in the Eastern Mediterranean region, American tobacco control experts are interested in the results because of the recent spread of the hookah bar fad across the U.S., especially among college students and young adults. Scientists are concerned about the potential health risks of the nicotine exposure. Little is known about the social attitudes and perceptions related to water pipe use and how those attitudes and perceptions might be influenced by gender.

The authors of study include Dr. Wasim Maziak of the SCTS, Dr. Thomas Eissenberg of VCU and Dr. Kenneth Ward of the U of M's Center for Community Health.

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