Tobacco use behaviors and household smoking bans among Chinese Americans

Purpose. To assess the relationship between household smoking restrictions and smoking patterns among Chinese American adults. Design. This is a cross-sectional analysis based on a National Institutes of Health-funded population-based household and telephone survey of 2537 Chinese American adults. Setting. Two communities in New York City. Subjects. The analyses focused on male current smokers (N = 600). Measures. Demographic characteristics, smoking status, household smoking restrictions, cigarettes smoked per day, and past quit attempts were based on self-reported data. Results. Among current smokers, 37% reported living in a home with a compute smoking ban. Smokers with a full household smoking ban smoked fewer cigarettes on weekdays and weekends than smokers with no household smoking ban (p ≤ .05) and were 3.4 times (p < .01) more likely to report having at least one quit attempt in the past 12 months. Smokers with knowledge of the dangers of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure were 2.8 times (p ≤ .01) more likely to have at least one quit attempt in the last 12 months compared with those who were unaware of the danger of ETS and more likely to live in a smoke-free household. Conclusions. Smoke-free home policies and interventions to raise awareness among smokers of the dangers of ETS have the potential to significantly reduce tobacco use and exposure to household ETS among this immigrant population.