Tobacco smoking habits among Chinese medical students and their need for health promotion initiatives

Although the community smoking rate within most industrialised countries is undergoing a continuous decline, in developing regions it is actually increasing by around 3% per year. China represents one such area where tobacco use has boomed, largely because of an increasingly affluent society and aggressive marketing by tobacco companies. It is now the world's largest consumer of tobacco and tobacco‐related products, with more than 300 million regular smokers. The community smoking rate has risen to alarming levels, with around two‐thirds of adult males being current smokers. China's smoking epidemic is also worsening, with more people taking up the habit at younger ages and consuming greater quantities of cigarettes per day. Tobacco has become a major cause of death in this country, with lung cancer rates increasing at approximately 5% per year and about half of China's 300 million smokers predicted to die from tobacco‐related diseases in future