Are comprehensive environmental changes as effective as health education for smoking cessation?

OBJECTIVES: To compare the effectiveness of health education on smoking cessation for all smokers regardless of their willingness to quit smoking and cumulative environmental changes including designation of smoking places, legislation, and price rise. DESIGN: Comparison of smoking cessation rates over two time periods: the period of health education on smoking cessation (1997-1999), and the period of cumulative environmental changes (2002-2004). SETTING: An occupational setting in a radiator manufacturing factory in Japan. SUBJECTS: All habitual male smokers who remained in the worksite through the pertinent time period (n = 202 in the period of health education and n = 170 in the period of environmental changes). MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: Smoking cessation rates at the end of each time period. RESULTS: The smoking cessation rates over the periods of health education and environmental changes were 8.9% and 7.1%, respectively. There was no difference between these two proportions in a chi2 test (p = 0.513). The age adjustment did not significantly alter the cessation rate. CONCLUSIONS: Cumulative environmental changes are fairly effective in promoting smoking cessation, and may yield similar smoking cessation rates as a health education intervention reaching all smokers regardless of their willingness to quit smoking.

Effectiveness of smoking-cessation intervention in all of the smokers at a worksite in Japan.

In Japan, the prevalence of smoking among males and females was 56.1% and 14.2%, respectively, in 1997. Male smoking prevalence was exceedingly high as compared to those in other industrialized countries. We conducted a randomized controlled intervention study on smoking cessation for all smokers in a worksite regardless of their willingness to quit smoking. All of the male smokers in a radiator manufacturing factory (n=263) were randomly allocated to an intervention group (n=132) or a control group (n=131). Subjects in the intervention group received individual counseling by a doctor, and those who signed a Smoking Cessation Declaration underwent a five-month intervention. Subjects in the control group received equivalent delayed intervention for four months. The cessation rate after the original intervention was 12.9% (17/132) and 3.1% (4/131) in the intervention and control groups, respectively (p=0.003). Among those who once succeeded in quitting, 48.6% (18/37) maintained cessation at the long-term survey. Overall, the cessation rate was 8.4% (22/263) and the prevalence of smoking among males significantly decreased from 62.9 to 56.7% (p=0.038). As a conclusion, intervention in all smokers at a worksite regardless of their willingness to quit is effective and impacts the overall smoking rate.

Development of the insulin-like growth factor-I assay system.

A high speed full automatic ELISA system for measurement of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) was established by using magnetic particle-linked monoclonal antibody and enzyme-labeled monoclonal antibody. A standard curve was obtained, and the effect of dilution on the assay system was investigated. An IGF-I spike recovery test of human serum samples and a study of the correlation with a radioimmunoassay system were performed, and good results were obtained from all studies. The assay range was 0.5-50 ng/ml, and the time required for the full automatic measurement was 15 minutes. This assay system will play a central role in the clinical approach to IGF-I.

Shadow Doppler technique for sizing particles of arbitrary shape.

The output from a linear diode array is used in a modified laser Doppler velocimeter to measure the size and shape of irregular particles. The sizing accuracy for transparent and opaque particles between 30 and 140 µm is better than 10%. The inaccuracy caused by trajectories that lay at angles of less than 24° to the axis of the array was less than +5%, and a further inaccuracy of +5% was caused by defocusing of the particle from the center of the velocimeter measuring volume by up to ±500 µm. The advantages of the shadow Doppler technique over other techniques for sizing irregular particles, such as amplitude systems with pointer volumes, are that the shadow Doppler technique records shape, the optical arrangement is more robust, less precise alignment is required, and the equipment can be constructed at low cost.