Smoking, a risk factor to health status, was studied extensively in relation to disease and death. These studies emphasized that smoking is the most principal decisive factor in preventing disease and death, and deceasing smoking rate is the first priority to improve public health(US DHHS, 1990,). The objective of this study is to provide basic materials for public health programs by analyzing the factors affecting smoking behavior in Korean.
The data were analyzed by focusing on variables related to smoking of public health consciousness and behavior survey materials which Korea Institute For Health and Social Affairs carried out public health consciousness and behavior survey in 1989, 1992, 1995 on a national scale by systematic probability proportional sampling.
The research data was analyzed by SAS version 6.12. The general characteristics of the study objects are in numbers and percentages, and logistic regression was applied to analyze factors affecting smoking Cox proportional hazard model was used to analyze the effects of age at smoking initiation on quitting smoking.
The results were as follows.
1) Factors affecting smoking
The factors affecting smoking were age, sex, education levels, marriage, economic levels, and region. That is, smoking rates were high in older, male, lower education married middle life level, and urban group.
2) Changes in smoking rates of study objects
The smoking rate of male 30-39 was decreased significantly(74.2% in 1989, 68.7% in 1995), and the smoking rate of male was on the decline, though the differences were not statistically significant.
The smoking rate of female 20-29 was increased significantly(1.4% in 1989, 5.0% in 1995) and the smoking rate of female 30-39 was increased significantly(1.1% in 1989, 3,4% in 1995). The smoking rate of female 50-59 was decreased significantly(11.9% in 1989, 6.5% in 1995) and the smoking rate of female was generally increased, though the differences were not statistically significant.
3) Effects of age at smoking initiation on smoking cessation Smoking cessation rate for those who start smoking after 20 was 1.49 times higher than before 19(95% CI=1.05, 2.11). This result indicated that it was difficult to quit smoking as you get older.
Consequently, the smoking rate of male is decreasing, but the rate is still high. The smoking rate of female was lower than that of male, but the trend is going up. It is a major problem in public health that age at smoking initiation is getting lower. So, smoking prevention education in middle school is very important, and education should be continued from adolescents to adults, because there were many who start smoking after 20.
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