The Association of Workplace Health Education on Smoking-Related Behaviour and Unequal Gains by Job Position in China: ABWMC Programme Findings
Abstract BackgroundAlthough the Chinese government has introduced a series of regulations to promote tobacco-related health education in workplaces, the implementation has been far from satisfactory. The aim of the present study was to explore the association of company level tobacco-related health education and employee’s smoking behavior.MethodsData from the 2018 Asia Best Workplace Mainland China programme were employed to address these aims. This was a cross-sectional study that included 14195 employees from 79 companies in mainland China. Spearman correlation tests were used to examine unadjusted correlation between the study variables, and binary logistic regression was used for multivariable analysis. The dependent variables included the smoking-related variables or health information-seeking behaviour. The explanatory variable is the company level tobacco-related health education.ResultsTobacco-related health education was associated with better smoking harm awareness, lower second-hand smoke exposure, better perceived workplace environment and positive health information-seeking behaviour. Job position interacted with health education, suggesting that positive association of health education were smaller for general employees than employees who held an administrative position.ConclusionsWe conclude that workplace tobacco-related health education was not only associated with tobacco control effects but also had spillover effects, which were significant for higher-ranking employees. Policy makers should recognize and reduce the potential health disparities.