The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: The study examined the role of cultural factors in beliefs and behaviors related to second hand smoke (SHS).

Methods: Secondary data analysis, using data from the 2001 Canadian National Survey on Environmental Tobacco Smoke. Two cultural groups were compared: 1507 Francophones and 3502 non-Francophones from Canada.

Results: Francophone nonsmokers encountered significantly higher exposure to SHS than non-Francophones (19.3% vs. 8.5%). This was much greater difference than expected given that the difference in smoking prevalence for the two groups was less than 4 percentage points (26.2% vs. 22.4%). Further analysis shows that Francophones were more likely to believe those so-called SHS-reduction strategies that appeared to be effective but were not in reality (e.g., opening the window when someone smokes). Most importantly, there was a statistically significant interaction between smoking status and cultural groups: fewer nonsmokers than smokers within each cultural group believed that these strategies were really effective, but the difference between the nonsmokers and smokers was significantly smaller for Francophones than non-Francophones. Therefore, the tendency to trust ineffective SHS-reduction strategies, especially among the nonsmokers, seems to explain why the difference of SHS exposure was much greater than the difference of smoking prevalence between the Francophones and non-Francophones. These findings suggest that a key strategy to reduce SHS exposure among nonsmokers is to mobilize them to be less tolerant of SHS and demand that smoking be relegated to outdoor areas away from non-smokers. This will not only help protect nonsmokers from the harm of SHS, but will eventually help smokers themselves quit smoking.