Investigation on high school personnel smoking status quo in four cities of China

  Objective   To study smoking prevalence of school personnel for providing scientific references for teacher tobacco control.

  Methods   A cross-sectional study was conducted among high school leaders, thachers and workers of Puyang city, Shanghai city, Tianjin city and Zhuhai city.Atotal of 100 high schools were selected by random sampling from all the city and township high schools in the four cities(each city selected 25).Astandardized selfadministrated questionnaire was used to obtain informationon smoking.

  Results   General smoking rate of the surveyed groups were 45.4% for males and 1.0% for females in Puyang, 54.1% and 3.4% in Shang hai, 44.9% and 2.8% in Tianjin, 47.6% and 3.1% in Zhuhai.The smoking rate of males was higher than that of females, which was statistically significant(P < 0.001).The smoking rates varied with different age cohorts. < 24 and 25~29 age cohorts had lower rates than those of 60 years and over, which was statistically significant(P < 0.01).The smoking rates also varied with positions of the surveyed.School leaders had higher smoking rates than those of school workers, which was statistically significant(P < 0.05).Abstinence rates among different age cohorts also varied.50~59 age cohort and 60 years and above had higher rates than those of < 24 age cohort, which was statistically significant(P < 0.05).

  Conclusion   The smoking rates among school personnel of the four cities were all lower than those of the general population, and the abstinence rates were higher.As a group with higher education, teachers had preferable knowledge level and qualities compared with the general population.As a result, they had better perception of selfdiscipline.