Smoking behaviors and attitudes among school teachers in Mie, Japan

We conducted a questionnaire survey of public kindergarten, elementary and high school teachers in Mie Prefecture, concerning smoking habits and attitudes from November 1995 to February 1996. A self-reporting questionnaire was sent to approximately 16,000 teachers and school employees. The questionnaires were collected in a way which took into consideration the privacy of the respondents. A total of 13,998 questionnaires were returned. The percentages of smokers among the teachers were 44.7% for males and 3.1% for females, percentages which are lower than those for the general Japanese population. Almost all of the men and women agreed that anti-smoking education is needed. Most of those who did not feel anti-smoking education was needed were smokers themselves. Seventy percent of both men and women responded that anti-smoking education was a teachers' duty, however, only thirty-six percent of the male and twenty-one percent of the female teachers had actual experience at such education. Finally, almost all teachers wish wish that schools were totally smoke-free or had a partial ban on smoking and believe that school anti-smoking policies in Japan should be introduced.