Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking among Five Asian Subgroups in Los Angeles County, California

We examined the prevalence of cigarette smoking among five Asian subgroups in Los Angeles County, California. Some studies indicate that some Asian subgroups have a high prevalence of smoking especially among men. Current smokers were defined as persons who had smoked 100 cigarettes or more in their lifetime and smoked during the time of the interview. We examined two datasets, the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) and the Los Angeles County Health Survey (LACHS). The data collection wave was 2005. There were a total of 1,015,000 respondents for the CHIS. The number of respondents for the LACHS was 8,648. The prevalence of current smoking was 11.2% (males=19.8%, females=4.7%) for the CHIS dataset and 11.8% (males=17.6%, females=6.4%) for the LACHS dataset, respectively. The prevalence of current smoking among Asian subgroups in the CHIS dataset were: Korean, 28.0%; Filipino, 23.6%; Chinese, 23.4%; Japanese, 9.6%; and Vietnamese, 9.4%. The prevalence of current smoking among Asian subgroups in the LACHS dataset were: Chinese, 22.1%; Korean, 20.2%; Japanese, 16.3%; Filipino, 12.5%; and Vietnamese, 5.8%. We concluded that smoking prevalence was highest among the Korean and Chinese Asian subgroups. Moreover, the prevalence of smoking was higher among males than females. Smoking cessation programs should be designed to target males of Chinese or Korean ethnicity.