Bounced between two cultures: Study of smoking behavior of Korean Americans

The United States is often referred as a melting pot, with a great wave of global immigrants constant populating its shores. When coming to America, the immigrants bring along their own culture. With the new generation born in the States, the fusion of two different cultures is an important factor in shaping their behavior. Coming from a different culture that is more accepting of smoking, many of the new generation also start to smoke. Asian Americans provide an important example. Despite having the lowest smoking rates of all ethnic groups, in 2011, 9.9 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander, specific subsets had noticeably high consumption rates. Various previous studies have studied factors contributed to smoking behavior in these ethnic groups, and acculturation is one of important characteristic impacts on this behavior. Korean Americans have the highest smoking rate in this group with 26.6% in 2011--20.1 percent of women and 37.4 percent of men smoked. By using data and research from tobacco industry marketing strategy and public health studies, this paper examines how the acculturation, the influences of Korean culture and tobacco companies as factors shape smoking behavior of Korean Americans and suggest a preventive program to target this subgroup