Smoking Rate Among Junior High School Students in Hainan Reaches 14.2%, Above the National Average

Yesterday, the large-scale health communication campaign “Healthy China Tour,” organized by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, arrived in Hainan. Through province-wide activities bringing “health culture into villages, communities, schools, military camps, and enterprises,” the campaign aims to guide the public in understanding and mastering basic health knowledge and skills, adopting healthy lifestyles and behaviors, improving health literacy, and sparking a new wave of nationwide healthy living initiatives.

Reporters learned at the Hainan stop of the “Healthy China Tour” that the results of Hainan residents’ health literacy monitoring (2013–2015) showed encouraging progress. Based on several consecutive years of monitoring, the province’s health literacy level rose from 3.3% in 2013 to 6.1% in 2015, nearly doubling.

However, tobacco control has once again drawn attention. Statistics show that 55.2% of non-smokers in the province are exposed to secondhand smoke, and many residents are deeply troubled by it. Meanwhile, some adolescents become “smokers” at a very young age.

Smokers in Hainan consume an average of 16.5 cigarettes per day; the smoking rate is 59.7% for men and 2.5% for women.

According to the results of Hainan’s tobacco prevalence monitoring (2015), the current smoking rate in the province was 32.6%. The rate was 37% among junior high school students, 35.2% among high school/vocational high school/technical secondary school students, and 40% among people with a master’s degree or above. Smokers in Hainan consumed an average of 16.5 cigarettes per day.

By education level, the current smoking rate was highest among those with a master’s degree or above, followed by those with a junior high school education, and lowest among those with a high school/vocational high school/technical secondary school education. The smoking rate was 34.5% among rural residents and 29.3% among urban residents. The 35–44 age group had the highest current smoking rate at 35.9%. By occupation, the top two smoking rates were among civil servants at 50% and workers at 42.5%.

30.3% of junior high school students have tried smoking

According to the results of the provincial youth tobacco prevalence survey (2014), a total of 3,640 students from 73 classes in 24 middle schools across the province were surveyed. The results showed a smoking rate of 19.7% for boys and 2.5% for girls. The smoking rate among junior high school students in Hainan was 14.2%, with both boys’ and girls’ smoking rates higher than the 2014 national average for youth smoking (national overall 6.4%, boys 10.6%, girls 1.8%). The rate of trying smoking was 40.2% for boys and 9.2% for girls. Overall, 30.3% of junior high school students had tried tobacco, also higher than the 2014 national average for youth experimentation with smoking (18.8%). The rate of intending to quit was 74.9% for girls and 71.6% for boys; 71.7% of current-smoking junior high school students planned to quit smoking.

Nearly 80% of middle school students were not refused when buying manufactured cigarettes because of their age

77.1% Nearly half of students purchased manufactured cigarettes from stores, shopping malls, street vendors, or kiosks; 48.6% More than half of surveyed students were exposed to secondhand smoke in public places; 74.1% More than half of surveyed students were exposed to secondhand smoke on campus; 66.2% Nearly half of surveyed students were exposed to secondhand smoke at home; 49.1% The vast majority of middle school students had seen smoking scenes on television, in videos, or in movies; 80.9% Nearly half of middle school students had seen tobacco advertisements at retail outlets; 42.7%