Tobacco Control at Workplaces- the Taiwan Experiences

Background: Taiwan has begun promoting smoke-free workplace through three task-oriented centers for tobacco control funded by the Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health, Executive Yuan since 2003. These centers were upgraded as the “Center for Workplace Health Promotion and Tobacco Control” (CWHPTC) in 2006. Following years of negotiation new amendments to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act was enforced on 11 January 2009. Smoking in indoor workplaces of three persons and above is completely prohibited. Methods: All the CWHPTC made efforts in coordinating consultative services of occupational health and health promotion as well as tobacco control programs. Objective operations included: visiting worksites; establishing smoke-free/restricted smoking policies; helping enterprises to collect data of current status in smoking rate and ETS; providing relevant education and trainings, and offering worksite smoking cessation consultation. Results: According to the experiences of workplace consultation and services, the most effective strategies for tobacco control included: initiating and implementing a worksite tobacco control measures, providing smoking cessation classes, and holding smoking cessation contests. Moreover, the participation of the C.E.O. in smoking cessation program is the key to success. Some important achievements were: a significant reduction in smoking rate (from 25% to 17.3%) and ETS (from 29.9% to 15.7 %), and a remarkable increase in total ban in indoor worksites (from 36% to 84 %) between 2003 and 2010. Conclusions: The present comprehensive model of workplace tobacco control program can serve as an effective practice in the nationwide tobacco control program. Our achievement can benefit further cross-national experience exchange.