Epidemiological status of tobacco use among college students in Zhejiang province, China / 中华健康管理学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To understand the prevalence of tobacco use among college students in different populations by sex,age and major,and to provide evidence for smoking control and health decision.Methods A total of 4 638 college students selected in 21 colleges through stratified multi-stage cluster sampling from Zhejiang Province were surveyed by using questionnaire analysis.Indicators such as tried smoking,current smoking,and secondhand smoke exposure,etc.,were calculated by weight on age proportions from the numbers of college students in Zhejiang.Results The prevalence of tried smoking and currcut smoking among college students were 29.72％ and 10.57％,respectively.The prevalence of tried smoking was 46.52％ for men,18.25％ for women;28.57％ for undergraduate,31.53％ for junior college;the prevalence of current smoking was 18.86％ for men,3.86％ for women;8.88％ for undergraduate,13.23％ for junior college students.The snoking rate in college students increased with age,the group of ≥21 Years was the highest (37.87％,16.09％).The lowest level of smoking was medical student (21.76％,2.19％).The prevalence of secondhand smoke exposure in outdoor and indoor places,and dormitory among students were 65.49％,60.33％,and 23.66％,respectively.In the past 30 days,college students have seen tobacco advertisement (47.38％),smoking scenes (60.20％),and got tobacco related gifts (10.40％),free tobacco products (8.93％);college students have seen information about tobacco control (60.50％),cigarette pack warning labels (58.45％),and learned the tobacco knowledge in class in the past 12 months (14.03％).Conclusion Current prevalence of smoking in college students in Zhejiang province remained at a high level,the rate of secondhand smoke exposure is high and in college students there was lack of tobacco control education in class.The results indicated that the policy about tobacco control in school was not enough and the task of health promotion should be taken more arduously.