Tobacco control baseline survey among health administration and public health departments in the urban areas of Wuxi City of Jiangsu Province

Objective To learn the prevalence of tobacco use and current tobacco control situation among health administrations in Wuxi's urban areas,and to provide baseline information and scientific support for Wuxi's Tobacco Free Cities-Gates China Tobacco Control program.Methods Questionnaire survey was conducted among all the staffs of 24 health administration departments and 23 community health service centers.Results The overall current smoking prevalence was 16.25%.Current smoking prevalence among male and female staffs were 45.08% and 0.07%,respectively.44.76% of the staffs were exposed to second hand smoke.Among the smoking staffs,72.35% smoke in workplaces,and 58.94% smoke in non-smoking areas.Only 36.31% of the current smokers planed to quit smoking in 12 months.Among all the staffs,98.14%,94.96% and 94.14% believed that hospitals,work sites and their own departments should ban smoking,respectively.In addition,66.27% of the staffs know the comprehensive tobacco control policy in their department,and 87.15% of the staffs expected their department to implement a more strict tobacco control policy.Conclusion The surveyed health administration departments and health care institutes should develop,implement and enforce tobacco control policies.In addition,the publicity and training on tobacco control policy,smoking harms and tobacco control measures should be carried out in an effort to strengthen the tobacco control intervention in non-smoking areas,improve the supporting rate and sense of responsibility among staffs,and promote the construction of tobacco free institutes.