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Press Release: Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Center (TRC) Research results reveal that the smoke free village is able to build cooperation among

all sectors in communities, build motivation in smokers to quit smoking, provide knowledge of cigarette dangers, set social standards, stimulate willpower, and help adolescents not become initial cigarette smokers.

Mr. Somphop Sangchan, an academic officer of the Nakhonphanom Provincial Health Office, is a member of the research team of The Village Model for Reducing and Quitting Smoking through Community Participation, supported by funding from the Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Center (TRC) and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth), reported results of this research project. People living in villages have their own measures to sort out cigarette smoking problems by assessing the smoking situation of smokers in their community and the impacts smoking have in their community. In addition, the community also applies a campaign method in helping smokers to quit smoking, persuading smokers to participate in community activities, and sorting out community smoking problems. The research was conducted at Mooban Nuangyangchin, A.Ranunakorn, Nakhonphanom province with 15 smokers along with their families participating in this research project during August 2012 2013.

The information obtained about the smoking situation and smoking problems in the sample village indicates that the number of people living at Mooban Nuangyangchin Moo 7 aged 15 and older is 240 people. There were 15 people in this group who were smokers (6.25%) and all of these smokers were men. Ages of smokers in this group were mostly 49 60(66.67%). The ages of the youngest smoker and the oldest smokers were 21 and 54. The percentage of smokers who smoked 10 23 years was 53.33% and 46.67% smoked one pack of cigarette per day. Smokers indicated reasons to smoke as: to destroy the smell of food after finishing their meal, just trying to smoke, because they see friends smoking, to reduce stress, to be happy after smoking, and because of cigarette retail shops near to their home. After obtaining methods to help smokers to reduce and stop smoking by providing knowledge to the community through families and community volunteers, it was possible to have community leaders participate in building public community policies through the participation of people living in the community. The results show that5 of 15 smokers were able to quit smoking (33.33%). Moreover, results also show that community models provide strict and clear methods to help smokers to quit smoking. Although the rest of the smokers (10 people) were not able to quit smoking, they have reduced the number of cigarettes they smoke, said Mr. Somphop.

Ajarn Kanchana Thongtour, a mentor of this project in Southeast Asia, said that bringing all measures such as agreement, building willpower, building participation of family, community and school was able to help the community become aware and concerned about the cigarette smoking problem. This awareness and resulting measures implemented might be more shared and useful in other locations. Moreover, solve this problem can be accomplished long term by stopping children from starting smoking through providing knowledge and building social measures to prevent children from becoming victims of smoking. This type of community research is able to help reducing the prevalence of manufactured cigarette and shredded tobacco use through community participation.

Request more information, please contact:
Coordinator: Haris Taweewatana, Tel., 0-2354-5346, 089-6627-917, Fax: 0-2354-5347 E-mail: haris.taw@trc.or.th