Fewer adults are chewing betel nuts, but awareness of their negative health effects is declining, a survey released on Dec. 3 by the Taiwan Alliance for Areca Nut Control and Oral Cancer Prevention showed.
The alliance surveyed adults, high-school students and junior-high students in 22 cities and counties on oral cancer prevention.
The results showed that betel nut usage and the mortality rate from betel nut use in adults last year dropped by about 80 percent in all areas, but fewer people were aware of its adverse health effects than in previous years.
Surveyed adults reported a lower usage rate than previous surveys at about 6.1 percent, but their awareness of its negative health effects also reduced to about 51.2 percent, Sunshine Social Welfare project manager Chuang Li-chen (莊麗真) said.
For students, the usage rate increased in more than half of the cities and counties surveyed, including in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taichung, she said.
Students’ usage in Taipei has increased for three consecutive years, from 1.66 percent in 2015, to 1.7 percent in 2016 and 3.2 percent last year, Chuang said.
The student usage rate in Taitung County has dropped for three consecutive years, but the adult usage rate has increased, the survey showed.
Alliance chairman Hahn Liang-jiunn (韓良俊), an honorary professor at National Taiwan University’s Department of Dentistry, said that the negative health effects from chewing betel nut are irreversible.
Oral precancerous lesions could develop into oral submucous fibrosis and potentially oral cancer, Hahn said.
The survey discredits the stereotype of rural areas having a higher betel nut usage rate than urban areas, the alliance said.
More teenagers might be trying betel nut because they are exposed to it by their peers, workplace or temple activities, it added.
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