Public support for more action on smoking

An online survey of 414 smokers and 414 non-smokers found strong support among New Zealanders for more tobacco control interventions. In particular, support for interventions that will protect children—smokefree playgrounds and smokefree cars when children are in them—was very high among both smokers and non-smokers. Predictably, non-smokers were more likely than smokers to support other tobacco control interventions including extending outdoor smokefree areas and restricting the availability of tobacco. Nevertheless, there was widespread support for the tobacco ‘end game’ goal of reducing smoking prevalence from around 20% to 5% or less by 2025. These results are consistent with growing evidence of public support for stronger tobacco control interventions and confirm that preventive health measures have broad public appeal. In November 2011, Wilson, Thomson, and Edwards concluded that, while some progress had been made towards achieving the goal of reducing smoking prevalence and tobacco availability in New Zealand, “gaps remain which need to be addressed if substantive progress towards the smokefree nation goal is to be achieved” 1 . Since then, tobacco has been removed from open display in retail stores, aboveinflation tobacco tax increases have been introduced, and the Ministry of Health has consulted over the implementation of plain packaging. While these evidence-based measures represent important progress, the government’s ’end game’ goal, of smoking prevalence below 5% by 2025, will require more comprehensive interventions. Recent studies suggest New Zealanders agree the government should do more to tackle the harm caused by smoking, 2-4 but we know less about which measures they believe the government should implement. To address this question, we surveyed 828 adult New Zealanders to estimate support for additional tobacco control interventions. Method