Gwangju City Promotes Smoking Cessation Services for Citizens' Health

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 10th that it will promote the creation of a smoke-free environment in citizens' daily lives and smoking cessation support services, considering the increased interest in health in the With-Corona era.

Smoking is one of the main causes of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, cancer, and diabetes, and citizens' discomfort regarding secondhand smoke has been continuously raised. Therefore, smoking cessation projects will be carried out in various directions from the perspective of citizen health management.

According to the 2019 Community Health Survey by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the overall smoking rate in Gwangju was 19.6%, a 1.5% decrease from the previous year. However, the smoking rate among men diagnosed with hypertension increased by 3% to 28.8%, and the smoking rate among men diagnosed with diabetes increased by 2.4% to 36.4%.

First, Gwangju City will strengthen the creation of a smoke-free environment and administrative support for smoking cessation to lower the smoking rate and improve citizens' health, including the prevention of chronic diseases.

Among the 46,316 places designated as non-smoking areas under the National Health Promotion Act and related ordinances, the city will strengthen the creation of smoke-free environments and enforcement around multi-use facilities frequently used by citizens, such as bus stops, smoke-free apartments, and school commuting routes.

For bus stops, a full survey will be conducted on 1,444 shelter-type stops (bus shelters with roofs) where multiple routes intersect, to actively prevent secondhand smoke damage in public facilities by installing and maintaining no-smoking signs and cracking down on smoking behavior.

Since 62 smoke-free apartments were designated with the consent of the majority of residents, the city will work with management offices to continuously request cooperation from residents and strengthen administrative support so that residents can voluntarily create a smoke-free environment within the apartments.

Additionally, to prevent secondhand smoke damage to children and adolescents, the city will continuously expand the pilot-designated smoke-free school commuting routes at 10 elementary, middle, and high schools in cooperation with the Office of Education and related organizations.

To ensure the effectiveness of smoking enforcement, the fine for smoking in non-smoking areas will be uniformly increased from 20,000 won to 50,000 won across the five districts. The city also plans to strengthen support for non-face-to-face smoking cessation clinic services and promote no-smoking zone guidance in public facilities such as buses and subways, alongside comprehensive administrative support for smoking cessation.

Im Jin-seok, head of the city's Health Policy Division, said, "Since smoking is a direct risk factor that increases the incidence of chronic diseases and affects citizens' health, we will do our best to improve citizens' health and create a pleasant and clean smoke-free city of Gwangju."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.