Smoking behaviour of male Chinese restaurant workers in Sydney — Agentur Pty Ltd

Smoking behaviour of male Chinese restaurant workers in Sydney (115)

Wei Jiang 1 , Brenda Leung , Nancy Tam
  1. Health Promotion Service, Sydney Local Health District, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

Background:

The aim of the Chinese Restaurant Tobacco Control Project is to determine the smoking prevalence and to explore knowledge and attitudes of male Chinese restaurant workers with regard to tobacco use and quitting. The project was carried out in four suburbs within the Sydney metropolitan area with the highest number of Chinese restaurants.

Methods:

A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in 2012 to collect information from a random sample of Chinese restaurants in four locations. A self-administered questionnaire was developed and translated. The target group was male Chinese restaurant workers aged 18 and over.

Results/Discussions:

Three hundred and eighty-two male Chinese restaurant workers from 54 restaurants participated in the project with a response rate of 59%. 

Survey results show that 30.8% male Chinese restaurant workers across Sydney metropolitan area smoked daily, whilst 39.7% in the Haymarket (Chinatown) area were daily smokers. 57% current smokers wanted to quit smoking and more than 65% of those wanted to quit within one month.
Smokers also revealed the main reasons for smoking are: smoking is a habit, smoking lets me take a break and smoking helps me relax; major difficulties for quitting are: feeling bored, stress from work and working long hours and enabling factors for quitting include: no one smokes around me, support and encouragement from family and friends and free NRT.

Conclusions/implications:

Restaurant workers represent a large segment of the workforce in Chinatown and Chinese urban communities. Many do not speak English well and most are male. A transient workforce, shift work and lack of access add to the challenges in reaching this specific population. Tobacco control education and intervention opportunities are limited in hard-to-reach populations such as Chinese restaurant workers.
Findings from this survey will guide future projects targeting the needs of male Chinese restaurant workers around smoking related health issues, the benefits of quitting and smoking cessation support.

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