Chinese Kids Know Their Smokes
Posted: October 13, 2013 Filed under: Asia, China | Tags: China, Cigarette, Fudan University, India, Joe Camel, Johns Hopkins University, Malboro, Nigeria, RUSSIA, Shanghai, World Health Organization 1 CommentNearly nine out of 10 Chinese children aged 5 and 6 can identify at least one cigarette brand, and roughly one out of five say they expect to smoke when they grow up.
Students posed with cigarette models during a campaign ahead of the World No Tobacco Day in Handan, Hebei province, in May.
Brittany Hite reports: Those are some of the breathtaking results of a recent study by Johns Hopkins University on the effects of tobacco marketing on children in low- and middle-income countries.
The survey, which questioned 396 children Jialing town in Qi County, Shanxi province, found that 71% of Chinese 5- and 6-year-olds had someone who used tobacco in their household while 86% could identify at least one cigarette brand – higher than survey counterparts in Brazil, India, Nigeria, Pakistan or Russia.
The researchers said they chose Jialing, a small town in China’s northwest, rather than a place like Beijing or Shanghai because they thought it would be representative of what a typical child in China might see. Previous surveys have foundsmoking rates to be higher in the Chinese countryside than they are in cities.
