RESULTS:
The average rate of smoking was 27.08% (46.62% for males and 3.05% for females). 16.06% (35/218) of the smokers had ever tried to quit smoking but failed. The years of smoking ranged from 1 year to 50 years, with 96.33% of the smokers purchased cigarettes on their own. Price of the cigarette ranged from 15 to 30 RMB per package, and smokers usually spent on average 192 RMB which accounted 13% of their monthly income, per month. According to the chart, if the cigarette price had a 50% increase, it would lead to 45% of the smokers reduce the number of cigarette consumption with another 5% of the smokers attempt to quit smoking. If cigarette price had an increase by 2 times, 50% of the smokers would attempt to quit smoking. So the chart could be used to estimate the percentage of smokers' behavior change according to the increase of tobacco's sales price.
CONCLUSION:
The economy burden of tobacco consumption among cigarette smokers was huge, suggesting that the Chinese smokers did need to change their smoking behavior. Chinese government should develop tobacco-related legislations and laws and set proper cigarette tax, hopefully this could reduce the number of smokers in a long run.
PMID: 23336191 [PubMed - in process]