世論 What Japan Thinks

After looking at if people who quit stayed smoke-free due to the recent massive tax hike, here we have iShare looking at the overall population to see who quit smoking due to the price rise. As most people predicted, the long-overdue price rise wasn’t matched by a similar reduction in smoking rates.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 8th of November 2010 661 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 25.6% in their twenties, 33.4% in their thirties, and 41.0% in their forties.

One slight problem with the data here is that the smoking population at 21.3% of men and 8.3% of women is about half of the usually-accepted figures, although I don’t know why this sample would differ from the general population.

Research results

Q1: Did you smoke before the tobacco price rise on the 1st of October 2010? (Sample size=661)

	All	Male N=371	Female N=290
Yes (to SQ2)	15.6%	21.3%	8.3%
No (to SQ1)	84.4%	78.7%	91.7%

Note that the following questions are rather confusingly interlinked! If there is no (to SQx) for an answer, it means that the survey is complete.

Q1SQ1: Did any of your family smoke before the tobacco price rise on the 1st of October 2010? (Sample size=558)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=266
Yes (to SQ3)	19.7%	14.0%	25.9%
No	80.3%	86.0%	74.1%

Q1SQ2: Did you give up or reduce your smoking after the tobacco price rise on the 1st of October 2010? (Sample size=103)

	All	Male N=79	Female N=24
Quit smoking (to SQ4)	8.7%	8.9%	8.3%
Cut down smoking (to SQ4 onwards)	27.2%	25.3%	33.3%
Carried on as before	64.1%	65.8%	58.3%

Q1SQ3: Did you suggest to your family members that they give up or reduce smoking after the tobacco price rise on the 1st of October 2010? (Sample size=110)

	All	Male N=41	Female N=69
Recommended they quit	28.2%	19.5%	33.3%
Recommended they cut down	19.1%	17.1%	20.3%
Didn’t recommend either	52.7%	63.4%	46.4%

Q1SQ4: Which of the following items did you use to help you cut down, quit, regardless of whether you succeeded or not? (Sample size=37, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=27	Female N=10
Electric tobacco	18.9%	18.5%	20.0%
Ordinary chewing gum, boiled sweets	10.8%	7.4%	20.0%
Other sweets	8.1%	3.7%	20.0%
Food	5.4%	3.7%	10.0%
Drink	2.7%	3.7%	0.0%
Prescription medicine	2.7%	0.0%	10.0%
Tablet sweets	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Over-the-counter nicotine patch	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Prescription nicotine patch	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Over-the-counter nicotine gum	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Other	5.4%	3.7%	10.0%
None of the above, willpower only	67.6%	74.1%	50.0%

Q1SQ5: After cutting down, quitting, how did your weight change? (Sample size=37)

	All	Male N=27	Female N=10
Increased	16.2%	14.8%	20.0%
Stayed the same	73.0%	77.8%	60.0%
Decreased	10.8%	7.4%	20.0%

Q1SQ6: Are you currently continuing to cut down, quit smoking? (Sample size=37)

	All	Male N=27	Female N=10
Continuing	86.5%	88.9%	80.0%
Failed but trying again	5.4%	3.7%	10.0%
Not continuing	8.1%	7.4%	10.0%