People’s smoking behaviors and perceptions toward the non-smoking areas in bus stations and public parks, in Chiang Mai municipality

Abstract

          The study aims to examine he smoking behavior among the people at bus stations and parks, in Chiang Mai municipality. The study can assess the effectiveness of the activities that promote  non-smoking area and also explore the difficulties of the program which complies with the Announcement No.18 B.E. 2550 (AD 2007) of the Ministry of Health. The study is a descriptive study and uses the questionnaires for obtaining the information. The 400 subjects were enrolled via the purposive sampling: 200 cases were selected at the bus station and 200 cases were selected at the parks. The figure was presented as percentages.

     The result shows: (1) the majority of the people have not smoked (69.5%) and also noticed that public parks and bus stations are legally non-smoking areas (51%) in front of the areas (3) According to the following of the ACT, the government mainly aims to make the people understand the law rather than enforcement of the law..

     The government or the relevant organizations should inform target groups and the people who responsible for administrating public areas about the information of the law and the enforcement of the law, especially via a varieties of medium. Moreover, the government should intensively enforce the law.