City releases 1st report on tobacco use among teens

Traditional cigarette smoking was significantly less common among Shenzhen teenagers compared with their peers in the rest of the country. Still, problems related to the use of multiple tobacco products among adolescents loom large, a report has showed.

The report, which focuses on tobacco use among Shenzhen teenagers, is the first of its kind in the city and was jointly published by the city’s tobacco control office and Shenzhen Center for Chronic Disease Control and Prevention yesterday.

The findings are based on a sampling survey conducted by the city’s tobacco control office on 7,243 students from 29 junior high schools, senior high schools and vocational high schools across the city from October to December last year.

According to the survey, the usage rates of traditional cigarettes among students at the three kinds of schools are 1 percent, 2.7 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively, which are lower than the national levels of 3.9 percent, 5.6 percent and 14.7 percent.

Among the students who have experienced smoking cigarettes, 70.7 percent of them started at the age of 13 and under, and 29.7 percent at the age of 7 and under.

The usage rate of tobacco products, including cigarettes and e-cigarettes, among Shenzhen students is 3.6 percent. It is noteworthy that the smoking rate of female students in Shenzhen has exceeded that of adult women.

The survey also found that the e-cigarette usage rate of Shenzhen teenagers is 2.5 percent, higher than the traditional cigarette usage rate of 2.3 percent.

It is found that parents and close friends have a significant impact on whether students will smoke.

Among those students who currently smoke, more than 60 percent of their parents and 90 percent of their friends smoke, too. Among students who never smoke, 54.8 percent of their parents and 71.3 percent of their friends are nonsmokers.

According to the city’s tobacco control regulations, tobacco products are forbidden to be sold within a 50-meter radius of primary and secondary schools and children’s palaces.

The survey showed, however, that there is a lack of supervision on the sales of tobacco products in the city, which leads to the easy acquiring of tobacco products by students.

Among the students surveyed, 32.6 percent of them reported that there were tobacco sales outlets around the school, and 70.3 percent of the students who smoke were not refused when buying cigarettes.

According to Xiong Jingfan, a technical officer of the smoke-free city project in Shenzhen, the city should step up efforts to provide services to assist people to quit smoking, and develop such services and projects that meet the needs of teenagers.

The report also pointed out that Shenzhen will strictly enforce the tobacco control regulations and push the construction of a smoke-free environment in families, communities, schools and public spaces.