Adult Male and Youth Smoking Rates Hit Record Lows... Seoul City Partners with WHO and Bloomberg Foundation to Create a 'Smoke-Free Healthy City'

Tobacco Advertising Survey, International Cooperation Project for Smoking Cessation Policy Feedback to Build a Tobacco-Free Seoul and Future Generations
Strengthening COVID-19 Management for Smokers Domestically and Abroad... WHO Recommends 'Quit Smoking Declaration' on World No Tobacco Day

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Last year, the smoking rates among adult men and adolescents dropped to the lowest levels ever recorded.

According to Seoul City on the 31st, the adult male smoking rate in Seoul was surveyed at 28.9% in last year's Community Health Survey, falling below 30% for the first time and marking an all-time low. In particular, the adolescent smoking rate also dropped to 3.4% in the Youth Health Behavior Survey, decreasing by 2.3 percentage points from the 5.7% rate maintained over the past three years.

The decline in smoking rates was found to be influenced by the spread of COVID-19. A survey on "Changes in Health Behavior Due to COVID-19" conducted last year among 1,500 Seoul citizens showed that 27.7% of smokers responded that their smoking amount or frequency had decreased. On the other hand, the quit attempt rate among current smokers increased. According to last year's Community Health Survey, the quit attempt rate among current smokers in Seoul was 49.1%, which had dropped to 22.7% in 2018 but surged by 26.4 percentage points last year.

In response, Seoul City plans to create a "Tobacco-Free Healthy City, Seoul" by jointly promoting smoking cessation projects such as tobacco advertising regulations and promotion bans in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Vital Strategies Foundation. Earlier this year, Seoul signed an agreement to participate in the "Bloomberg Philanthropies Health Cities Partnership," which includes over 50 cities worldwide such as New York, London, and Paris, and will actively implement tobacco control projects together with WHO and Vital Strategies.

The "Health Cities Partnership" is a prestigious global network established to prevent non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries. Bloomberg Philanthropies, together with WHO and Vital Strategies, supports participating cities in implementing policies and programs to prevent chronic diseases and injuries within their communities.

Seoul City will first jointly promote the "Tobacco Advertising Regulation" project with WHO and Vital Strategies, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, to improve environments that may induce smoking among youth and non-smokers, such as indiscriminately exposed retail tobacco advertisements. Key projects include investigating the status of retail tobacco advertisements by district in Seoul, establishing model stores with voluntary tobacco advertising regulations, conducting public awareness surveys on the need for tobacco advertising regulation and improving smoking-harmful environments, and promoting tobacco advertising regulation campaigns. Additionally, monitoring of compliance with smoking bans in public places will be conducted to identify factors hindering legal compliance and explore ways to enhance voluntary compliance, aiming to implement more practical smoking cessation projects.

Especially as the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has been found to increase citizens' attempts to quit smoking, this collaborative project plans to spread the positive effect that quitting smoking can simultaneously reduce the risk of chronic diseases and COVID-19, and to make every effort to prevent the emergence of new smokers. Furthermore, in cooperation with WHO, opinions will be collected from key information providers by district regarding Seoul's tobacco control and smoking cessation policies in response to the spread of COVID-19, and tobacco control policies will be established and promoted to respond to the post-COVID era.

Park Yumi, Director of the Seoul City Citizen Health Bureau, said, "In the ongoing situation of COVID-19, I hope that many smokers will decide to quit smoking for their own and their families' health on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day," adding, "Seoul City will activate international networks such as WHO and Bloomberg Philanthropies to proactively respond to the changing smoking environment with smoking cessation policies."