KJC Korea
Journal Central

This manuscript examines the operational status of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s school-based research center for tobacco use prevention (hereafter referred to as the “research center”), aiming to conduct a self-evaluation of major accomplishments and to propose future directions for the research center. The research center was created to establish a project plan based on Seoul’s database containing information on the current situation of youth smoking and community resources and to evaluate the accomplishments and contributing projects of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education as well as individual schools. Currently, 10 researchers, including a reader with 2 teams, are involved in this research center. Since 2016, the research center has achieved accomplishments in aspects of the project related to policy support, through materializing project goals and progress directions, establishing metrics for project evaluation, and reinforcing networks. Furthermore, the research center has made contributions in aspects of technical support, such as reinforcing project capability and diversifying project targets. Stable and systematic operation of the research center hinges on the continuity of projects, reestablishment of roles in the project, acquisition of specialists from various fields, and strengthening the cooperation between communities. Therefore, a nationwide expansion of such research centers that aid school-based tobacco use prevention projects would result in significant contributions toward enhancing the project’s impact.

We examined tobacco-related news articles published from the 1890s to the 1940s to explore the background of the tobacco industry and advertisements; the political, social, and economic situation related to tobacco consumption; and antismoking movements. Tobacco first became commercially available in the 1950s and continued to be used for nearly 80 years in Korea. However, the history of smoking cessation spans only 50 years. The long history of smoking represents the extent of harm caused by tobacco addiction, and the short history of smoking also represents the degree of fatal health effects of smoking. The concept of smoking cessation has recently been introduced in Korea. We plan to perform a retrospective study on public health perception regarding tobacco and smoking-cessation campaigns in modern Korean history and suggest directions for managing the current smoking situation and smoking cessation policies.

Background: This study aimed to identify trends in smoking scene exposures in popular movies released in Korea. Methods: One hundred commercially successful movies that were released from 2006 to 2015 were selected from the Korea Film Council’s database. Ten monitoring teams watched the selected movies to collect data through a structured questionnaire developed by the authors. Results: The total smoking scene exposures in 100 movies released from 2006 to 2015 was 618. On average, there were 2.7 smoking scene exposures in PG-13 rated movies and 7.5 smoking scene exposures in R rated movies. Smoking scene exposures in the movies that youth could watch (PG-13 and R rated movies) have increased by almost 50% from 42 times in 2006 to 64 times in 2015. One-third of the smoking scenes (123 out of 372) was shown without any relevance to the storyline of the movie, while almost 17% of the smoking scenes were when actors faced stress or divorce. Worry and violation were other situations where smoking scenes were shown. Thirty-five percent of smoking scenes (135 out of 379) portrayed actors smoking in non-smoking areas, including schools, restaurants, or public places, while 15.6% and 8.7% of the smoking scenes took place in the home and street, respectively. Conclusion: Global and domestic efforts to achieve de-normalization of tobacco use in real life can be undermined by smoking scene exposures in movies. Monitoring and protecting youths from exposure to smoking scenes in PG-13 and R rated movies are needed.

Background: The association between experience with “National Smoking Cessation Services (NSCS)” and intention to quit was investigated among adult smokers to evaluate its effects and provide better services. Methods: From the Tillion Internet research panel, 2,000 tobacco users aged 19-65 years old were sampled with country representativeness and invited to participate in an online survey on November 2018. Information on general characteristics, smoking behaviors, experience with cessation services, and intention to quit were gathered. A Chi-square test and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to estimate the association. Results: In total, 19% and 71% of 2,000 current adult smokers intended to quit within 1 and 6 months. Additionally, 21.8% had ever used cessation services. Smoking fewer than 10 cigarettes per day and ever using cessation services increased the intention to quit within one month, and this increase was furthered when they experienced the effect of cessation services (OR 2.78, 95% CI 2.07-3.73). There was a similar effect on intention to quit within six months. In the subgroup analysis of those ever using NSCS, intention to quit within six months was greatly increased when the subjects experienced reinforcement of willingness or self-confidence to quit from previous use of cessation services (OR 9.34, 95% CI 2.71-32.16). Conclusion: Ever using NSCS and experiencing the reinforcement of self-confidence to quit from NSCS use increased the intention to quit among current adult smokers. An organized effort appears necessary to encourage more smokers to access cessation services and to intensify the program for self-confidence to quit for service improvement.