• Jin-Ok Han, Jeong-Soo Im, Jun Yim, Yoon-Hyeong Choi, Kwang-Pil Ko, Junghoon Kim, Hee Gerl Kim, Yunhong Noh, Young-Khi Lim, and Dae-Kyu Oh.
• Department of Preventive Medicine, Gachon University College of Medicine, Sungnam, Republic of Korea E-mail : yklim@gachon.ac.kr and jsodk@gachon.ac.kr.
• Asian Pac. J. Cancer Prev. 2015 Jan 1; 16 (13): 5531-6.

BackgroundIncreased pricing of cigarettes might be one of the most effective approaches for reducing the prevalence of smoking. This study aimed to investigate the effects of increasing cigarette prices through taxation by a tobacco intervention policy on the changes in smoking prevalence in Korean university students.Materials And MethodsThe participants in this study were 23,047 healthy university students aged 18-29 years from a health examination in 2011-2015. We investigated the adjusted prevalence of daily and occasional smoking before and after increasing cigarette prices through taxation.ResultsThe prevalence of occasional smoking was significantly decreased in 2015 from 2014 in both male (from 10.7% in 2014 to 5.4%) and female (from 3.6% to 1.1%) students, but the prevalence of daily smoking did not decrease significantly. The frequency of individuals who had attempted smoking cessation during the past year was significantly higher among occasional smokers in male students (90.2%) compared with daily smokers (64.9%). For female students, there were no differences in experience of smoking cessation, willingness for smoking cessation, or E-cigarette experience between daily and occasional smokers.ConclusionsWe found that a policy of increasing cigarette prices through taxation is associated with decreases in the prevalence of occasional smokers, who have relatively lower nicotine dependence compared with individuals who smoke daily. The results of our study suggest that social support and direct intervention for smoking cessation at the community level are needed for university students alongside the pricing policy.

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