How do the Japanese medical students evaluate the effectiveness of anti- smoking strategies? - An application of the analytic hierarchy process

Abstract

In order to establish the effective strategies to reduce the smoking prevalence among teenagers in Japan, the author evaluated opinions of the 30 male medical students with smoking habit by the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. In the AHP model, the six factors are considered to be important for the onset of teenagers smoking; smoking habit of peers, smoking habit of family members, tobacco advertising, convenience to buy cigarettes, social acceptance of smoking and knowledge of harmful effects of smoking, and the five strategies are proposed; tobacco advertising ban, higher pricing of tobacco, promotion of anti-smoking education, regulation on tobacco sales, and regulation on smoking area. According to the medical students' perspective, the strategy of 'higher pricing of tobacco' was considered to be the most effective strategy to reduce the smoking incidence of the teenagers, followed by 'regulation on tobacco sales', 'promotion of anti-smoking education', 'regulation on smoking area', and 'tobacco advertising ban'.