142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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311335
Analytical Study on Street Smoking Ban by City Bylaws in Japan, 2002-2013

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Suketaka Iwanaga, MD, PhD , Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Megumi Noami, MPH , Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Keiko Kusaka, MD , Department of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Kazuyoshi Harano, MD , Embassy of Japan, Mauritania, Nouakchott, Mauritania
Masahiro Tanaka, MD , Osaka City Mental Health Center, Osaka, Japan
Kazunari Satomura, MD, PhD , Department of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Toshitaka Nakahara, MD, PhD, MPH , Deapartment of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Background and purpose: The Japanese Health Promotion Law had been enforced since August, 2002 which concerns prevention of passive smoking in public places. October 1st, 2002, one of the special ward governments in Tokyo, has enforced a bylaw which controls street smoking within their ward. Other metropolitan special wards and local municipal governments have followed. We analyzed the characters and development of these city bylaws.Methodology: The municipalities which enforced street smoking ban by their city bylaws were specified through the news distributed on the internet web. The text of each city bylaw and the implementing regulations were downloaded for analysis. Results: As of February 1st, 2014, 144 municipalities are identified to have enforced street smoking ban bylaws. 79 municipalities are found in KANTO area (around Tokyo). In the titles of the bylaws, the phrase; “littering ban” is used in 30 cases, the word; “environment” is used in 24 cases. In the text of the bylaws, “cigarette butts littering ban” is described in 98 cases, “secondhand smoking” is in 22 cases and “health” is found in only 7 bylaws. 94 municipalities provide penal regulations. Conclusions: The number of cities which enforced street smoking ban bylaw has been increasing. But the big parts of the purpose of them in many cases are not for the health but the cleanness of the environment of the cities.The further recognition of hazardness of smoking would result in a surge in the progress of smoke-free policy with a vow to take action to promote health.

Learning Areas:

Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Identify the different political tendencies for the smoking bans between the national and the local governments in Japan.

Keyword(s): Tobacco Control, Policy/Policy Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been researching and teaching public health and health policies at universities.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.