Gonghuan Yang, MD, MPH, Department of Non-Communicable Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, 5# Line 3, Dongdan Road, Beijing, 100005, China, Shaojun Ma, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, Peking Union Medical College, 5 Dong Dan San Tiao, Beijing, 100005, China, Jiemin Ma, MHS, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Room W6027, Baltimore, MD 21205, and Frances Stillman, EdD, Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St, W6027, Baltimore, MD 21205.
Objective:
China,
with 1.27 billion people, is home to 20 percent of the world's population and
consumes 30 percent of the world's cigarettes. Most Chinese still live in the
rural areas where little work has been done to assess smoking rates as well as
to plan policy and programmatic efforts to reduce the burden of death and
disease from smoking.
Methods:
This
presentation will focus on research conducted as part of the Fogarty International Center's Tobacco Health Research Capacity
Building Program. The research was conducted in three provinces: Henan, Jiangxi and
Sichuan,
including rural and urban areas. A household survey was conducted with 15,000
individuals; 80 focus groups with doctors, nurses, students, farmers and
community leaders; and secondhand smoke passive monitoring in 273 public places
including hospitals, secondary schools, government building, public transport,
restaurants and entertainment establishments
Results:
Currently
more that half of all men in the rural areas of China
that were included in the survey, are smokers; few of the women are smokers.
Among adult men, it is almost a social necessity to smoke since offering a
cigarette is a common practice and part of the cultural and a greeting between
males. Knowledge of the health
effects of smoking is still low.
Tobacco use is viewed as a private, individual decision. Secondhand smoke
exposure is pervasive with over 60% of non-smokers reporting being exposed
especially in restaurants, entertainment locations and on public transport. The
presentation will discuss how these data are being used for policy and program
development.
