Abstract
The Tobacco Harm Prevention Law has been promulgated in 2012 in Vietnam, prohibiting smoking in public places such as restaurants except for designated smoking areas. However, currently, evidence about Vietnamese customers’ and restaurants’ compliance with the Law is constrained. This study aimed to explore customers’ perceptions; attitudes and practices towards the compliance with tobacco control regulations in the restaurants in Hanoi, Vietnam. A cross-sectional study was performed in October 2015 with 1746 customers in 176 communes in Hanoi, Vietnam. Data about customers’ perceptions on how restaurants comply with the smoking control law and whether customers smoking actively or experienced SHS in restaurants in the last 30 days were collected. Multivariable mixed effects logistic regression model was used to determine the factors related to smoking in the restaurant. Most customers were aware of the law on Tobacco Harm Prevention (79%; n = 1320) and regulations that prohibited smoking in restaurants (78.4%; n = 1137). While 75.8% (n = 1285) of customers perceived that they did not see or rarely saw no-smoking signs, 17.7% (n = 481) of customers reported that they frequently saw direct marketing of tobacco in visited restaurants. About one-fourth of customers witnessed that the staff reminded customers not to smoke inside restaurants (28.8%; n = 313), and 65% (n = 1135) sometimes or always were exposed to secondhand smoke in their visited restaurants. People who were female (OR = 0.02, 95% CI = 0.01–0.05) were less likely to report their smoking in the restaurant than their counterparts. Those having higher age (OR = 1.03; 95% CI = 1.01–1.06), high school education (OR = 2.14, 95% CI = 1.07–4.26), being office workers (OR = 3.24, 95% CI = 1.33–7.92) or unemployed (OR = 4.45; 95% CI = 1.09–18.15) had a higher likelihood of reporting to be restaurant smokers than those having lower high education or students, respectively. This study highlighted a low level of perceived compliance with the smoke-free law in Vietnamese restaurants. Improving the monitoring systems for the enforcement of the smoking law in restaurants should be prioritized; restaurant owners should implement 100% smoke-free environments as following the best practice towards the tobacco control law along with educational campaigns to promote the awareness of restaurant owners and customers about the tobacco control law.
Highlights
Tobacco smoking has been well-documented as a common issue in restaurants [1,2,3,4,5]
This current study evaluated the compliance with the Tobacco Control Law of restaurants from the customers’ perspective
The findings show that the attitude of non-smokers in enforcing others to stop smoking was similar to the attitude of staff, and it further emphasizes the role of promulgating stringent regulations on smoke-free restaurants to minimize passive smoking in restaurants
Summary
Tobacco smoking has been well-documented as a common issue in restaurants [1,2,3,4,5]. Given a growing concern to protect employees and patrons from the adverse health effects of smoking exposure, banning smoking in restaurants has been prioritized in global tobacco control ordinances [6]. The World Health Organization (WHO) called for the need to protect non-smokers and allow them to live in a smoke-free environment as per Article 8 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) [7]. The WHO developed an MPOWER comprehensive strategy based on the FCTC in 2008, including six tobacco control measures that promote mandates on smoke-free public places [8]. Previous studies found that these regulations promoted a significant reduction of secondhand smoke [15,16], increased motivation to quit smoking [17] and, in particular, did not cause any loss of business profits [18,19,20,21]
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