Secondhand smoke remains serious problem, survey finds

The number of people exposed to secondhand smoke remains high across cities in China, with over 40 percent of people in workplaces nationwide still exposed, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

The China City Adult Tobacco Survey - released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization - polled residents age 15 and above in 14 cities in 2013 and last year.

The survey asked a series of questions about tobacco use and respondents' awareness of, and attitudes toward, local tobacco control policies. Conclusions were based on the 31,515 completed survey forms.

"There is no safe level of secondhand smoke, and the only way to protect against its harmful effects is to make all indoor places 100 percent smoke-free," said Doctor Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO representative in China.

Even though more than 90 percent of adults strongly support smoke-free policies, especially in public health facilities and schools, "strong laws are needed", Schwartlander added.

According to survey results, rates of exposure to secondhand smoke were lower in cities with smoke-free regulations compared with those cities without regulations, or in places with weak and poorly implemented regulations.

With no tobacco control rules, Nanchang, Jiangxi province, has the highest rate of exposure to secondhand smoke in public places. The number of people exposed in health facilities in the city was 44 percent.

Meanwhile, in Karamay in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, where tobacco control laws were implemented in September 2013, the rate is a mere 7.3 percent.

"We have seen how law enforcement could be effective recently in Beijing, where the country's strongest tobacco control law to date came into effect on June 1, and we hope that more cities will join," Schwartlander said.

Wang Yu, director of China CDC, said that more efforts are needed to raise public awareness, since the survey results show that awareness of the policy is often poor when local smoke-free policies are in effect.

Even though smoking in restaurants is banned in Anshan, Karamay, Qingdao, and Shenzhen, less than half of all people surveyed there knew about the smoking bans in their cities.

"We hope that the results of this survey can provide some lessons for future tobacco control efforts in China, both for other cities," Schwartlander said. "Strong laws are needed - and where they exist and are rigorously enforced, they work."