About Me
I am a senior at Rice University pursuing a major in Kinesiology with a concentration in Health Sciences and a Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities minor. I am interested in examining tobacco use prevalence and the related disparities among women and vulnerable populations. I hope that learning more about these issues and contributing to Wikipedia articles will provide me with valuable insight and raise awareness in order to inform critical policies in tobacco use.
Project Plans for Spring 2020
This semester, I plan on revising the article Smoking in South Korea. I have been involved in tobacco prevention research in the past year - in both the public health and clinical realms. Through my experiences, I have gained a great interest in tobacco use and its multiple dimensions including prevention, behavior, and control. Particularly, I am interested in the inequalities surrounding tobacco use - the forces that make some groups more vulnerable than others, their implications in reinforcing health disparities, and the sociocultural contexts in which they occur. Especially with the rise of novel tobacco products (e.g. Juul, IQOS, other e-cigarettes), these topics are important to address.
Below, I have outlined my proposal.
Topic: Smoking in South Korea
Rationale for revision and expansion:
Outdated Information
- A majority of the information presented in the article, including prevalence rates and control policies, is from sources dated 2015 and before. This is a major issue as the smoking climate in South Korea has been strongly influenced by new trends and products in recent years. Therefore, there is a critical need to update the article with both qualitative and quantitative information including recent data and societal changes.
Lack of information regarding novel products
- With the rise of novel tobacco products all over the world and in South Korea, there is a pressing need to acknowledge their influence and integrate relevant information into the smoking article.
- There is no mention of the impact and regulation of e-cigarettes, including Juul which was introduced in South Korea in May 2019, and IQOS, a heated tobacco product, which was introduced into the South Korean market in June 2017 and has been very popular and successful.
Lack of information regarding tobacco control
- The only mentioned tobacco control policies are nationwide and Seoul-specific smoking bans along with a single sentence about an increase in tobacco prices
- This is a major problem as tobacco control in South Korea encompasses a wide variety of strategies such as taxes, anti-smoking campaigns, and regulations on packaging, labelling, and advertising. Bans merely represent one type of strategy.
Lack of information regarding sociocultural environment
- South Korea’s smoking environment is shaped by its unique sociocultural forces and leads to unique sociocultural outcomes. There is extremely limited information about them in the current article. For instance, the existing information regarding influence of mandatory military service on smoking is included in the “Prevalence and effects” section and offers no connection to possibly acting as a cause of the large gender difference in smoking in South Korea.
- Smoking is a multi-dimensional behavior with causes, consequences, and context in realms of culture and society. Therefore, it is imperative to include these forces to provide a comprehensive picture of smoking in South Korea.
Notability
- Smoking is marked to be the leading cause of preventable death in the world. Its detrimental health effects causes monumental losses to the economy as a result of health care costs and lost working hours. Furthermore, high rates of smoking has been found to be associated with low socioeconomic status. Therefore, there is a need to bring into light information on smoking in order to increase prevention and cessation efforts.
- Smoking prevalence is one of the highest in South Korea. Smoking has been embedded in Korean culture since its introduction in the early 1600s from Japan. Its masculine smoking culture, especially attributed to smoking initiation during mandatory military service for males, creates a drastic gender difference in smoking rates. Furthermore, the way that smoking has been portrayed in public, such as in the media, framed it as a social activity.
Comparison with:
Smoking in North Korea (Good Article)
- In combination, the sections of the article on Smoking in North Korea (SNK) compose a comprehensive overview of smoking in North Korea. The sections illustrate the main components in relation to smoking: history, culture, health effects, tobacco control, and tobacco industry.
- In comparison, the article on Smoking in South Korea (SSK) does not address these key topics. It barely touches on the history and culture, and it limits tobacco control mechanisms to bans. Therefore, I will expand on the existing sections as well as add new sections to cover important ground.
- SNK writing is clear and lacks grammatical errors
- In comparison, although they do not interfere heavily, SSK contains some grammatical and writing errors. I will correct all of these and ensure that the writing style presents the material both clearly and articulately.
- The overall structure and organization is really good; the information flows smoothly and consistently throughout the article in a logical way.
- In comparison, the presentation of information in SSK is not ideal. It combines prevalence and health effects in a section called “Prevalence and effects” and places it near the end of the article. I will break this section into two individual sections and place “Prevalence” near the beginning of the article.
- The proposed changes will help improve SSK’s article status by increasing the breadth and depth of the information
Tracked changes outline:
1. Historical background (Rename to “History”)
2. Prevalence
2.1 Cigarettes
2.2 Novel tobacco products
3. Sociocultural environment
3.1 General Attitudes
3.2 Gender difference
4. Tobacco control
4.1 Smoke-free policies
4.2 Increased tobacco taxes
4.3 Limitations on advertising and marketing
4.4 Anti-smoking campaigns
5. Effects of smoking
5.1 Health effects
5.2 Economic effects
2. Laws
2.1. Nationwide
2.2. Seoul
2.3. Other regions
3. Financial and medical help for quitting
4. Prevalence and effects
5. South Korean smoking etiquette
6.. See also
7. References
7.1 Works cited
8. External links
Planned work outline:
History
- This section will comprise of a summary of the history of smoking in South Korea, including the introduction of tobacco into Korea and its historical trends, policies and regulatory schemes, and activism efforts against it.
- Sihn, Kyu Hwan, and Hong Gwan Seo. "The introduction of tobacco and the diffusion of smoking culture in Korea." Korean Journal of Medical History 10, no. 1 (2001): 23-59.
- Cho, Hong-Jun. "The status and future challenges of tobacco control policy in Korea." Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health 47, no. 3 (2014): 129.
- Lankov, Andrei. North of the DMZ: Essays on daily life in North Korea. McFarland, 2014.
Prevalence
- Here, I will replace the outdated prevalence rates of smoking with updated information from recent sources. Prevalence rates will not only be differentiated based on gender but also on the type of tobacco product - namely, cigarettes versus e-cigarettes. For this reason, I will introduce novel tobacco products in South Korea, including heated tobacco products and e-cigarettes, in this section with information regarding its usage and trends.
- World Health Organization. "WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic 2019: Offer help to quit tobacco use." (2019).
- Choi, Sunhye, Yoonjung Kim, Suyeon Park, Jihye Lee, and Kyungwon Oh. "Trends in cigarette smoking among adolescents and adults in South Korea." Epidemiology and health 36 (2014).
- Lee, Sungkyu, Heejin Kimm, Ji Eun Yun, and Sun Ha Jee. "Public health challenges of electronic cigarettes in South Korea." Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health 44, no. 6 (2011):235.
- Cho, Hong-Jun, Lauren M. Dutra, and Stanton A. Glantz. "Differences in adolescent e-cigarette and cigarette prevalence in two policy environments: South Korea and the United States." Nicotine and Tobacco Research 20, no. 8 (2018): 949-953.
- Kim, Minji. "Philip Morris International introduces new heat-not-burn product, IQOS, in South Korea." Tobacco control 27, no. e1 (2018): e76-e78.
Sociocultural Environment
- This section will be dedicated to bring to light the sociocultural contexts in which smoking occurs in South Korea. Specifically, I plan on elaborating on general attitudes toward smoking, the drastic gender difference including the phenomena of hidden female smokers, stigmas associated with women smoking, and military service as a driver of initiation of smoking among men. These will most likely stand as sub-sections.
- Park, Myung Bae, Chun-Bae Kim, Eun Woo Nam, and Kyeong Soo Hong. "Does South Korea have hidden female smokers: discrepancies in smoking rates between self-reports and urinary cotinine level." BMC women's health 14, no. 1 (2014): 156.
- Chun, JongSerl, and Ick-Joong Chung. "Gender differences in factors influencing smoking, drinking, and their co-occurrence among adolescents in South Korea." Nicotine & Tobacco Research 15, no. 2 (2013): 542-551.
- Park, Eunja, Sung-il Cho, Hong Gwan Seo, Yeol Kim, Hyun-Suk Jung, Pete Driezen, Janine Ouimet, Anne CK Quah, and Geoffrey T. Fong. "Attitudes of Korean smokers towards smoke-free public places: findings from the longitudinal ITC Korea Survey, 2005–2010." BMJ open 9, no. 8 (2019): e025298.
- Kim, Sun S., Seongho Kim, Gregory Seward, Lisa Fortuna, and Sherry A. McKee. "Korean American women's experiences with smoking and factors associated with their quit intentions." ISRN Addiction 2013 (2013).
- Gunter, Rebekah, Edwin Szeto, Se-Hoon Jeong, Sooyeon Aly Suh, and Andrew J. Waters. "Cigarette Smoking in South Korea: A Narrative Review." Journal of the Korean Academy of Family Medicine (2019).
Tobacco Control
- Here, I will detail the various kinds of current tobacco control measures as the history section will cover past tobacco control policies. As of now, the article only touches on bans nationwide and in Seoul as efforts in tobacco control. Undoubtedly, there is a need to expand. I plan to incorporate smoke-free policies, increased tobacco taxes, regulations of tobacco packaging and labeling, anti-smoking campaigns, and restrictions in advertising and marketing as the major efforts by the government to control smoking behavior. I plan to group these and make them into sub-sections.
- Lim, Min Kyung, and Hong-Jun Cho. "Current status of tobacco control policies in Korea compared with international treaty and its implementation." Journal of the Korean Medical Association 61, no. 3 (2018): 148-156.
- Park, Eun-Ja, Susan Park, Sung-il Cho, Yeol Kim, Hong Gwan Seo, Pete Driezen, Anne CK Quah, and Geoffrey T. Fong. "What cigarette price is required for smokers to attempt to quit smoking? Findings from the ITC Korea Waves 2 and 3 Survey." Tobacco control 24, no. Suppl 3 (2015): iii48-iii55.
- Cho, Hong-Jun. "The status and future challenges of tobacco control policy in Korea." Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health 47, no. 3 (2014): 129.
Effects of Smoking
- This section will include two main categories: health effects and economic effects. Although the health effects of smoking are generally universal, I plan to write about the specific health effects of smoking on the South Korean population including disease risk and mortality rates as a result of tobacco-related illnesses. Moreover, smoking has been shown to be linked to economic burden. Therefore, I will detail the specific estimated costs of treatments attributable to smoking in South Korea to illustrate the extent to which smoking burdens its economy.
- Kang, Hye-Young, H. J. Kim, T. K. Park, S. H. Jee, C. M. Nam, and H. W. Park. "Economic burden of smoking in Korea." Tobacco Control 12, no. 1 (2003): 37-44.
- Jung, Keum Ji, Young Duk Yun, Soo Jin Baek, Sun Ha Jee, and Il Soon Kim. "Smoking-attributable mortality among Korean adults, 2012." J Korea Soc Health Inform Stat 38, no. 2 (2013): 36-48.
Links:
In Smoking in South Korea
- I will add many links regarding general and more specific topics regarding smoking and tobacco use such as Tobacco Smoking, Smoking cessation,Youth smoking, Tobacco advertising among many others
- Furthermore, I will add links to related articles regarding South Korea and its sociocultural aspects such as Female smoking, Confucianism (i.e. one of the driving forces of stigma surrounding female smokers), Conscription in South Korea.
In other articles to Smoking in South Korea
- There is already a link to this article from the main article South Korea. I plan to include a link from Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which is a division of the government founded to address discrimination against women in South Korea, regarding policies to address female smoking and also a link from Ministry of Food and Drug Safety under the See also section.
Potential challenges:
One difficulty will be clearly defining the term smoking and tobacco use and how they are different and similar, especially in regard to the novel tobacco products widely used in South Korea. To elucidate this common confusion, I will link to respective articles and use the organizational structure of tobacco products to convey that the term smoking is equated to the term tobacco use, except in the case of smokeless tobacco, which isn’t very popular in South Korea. Another difficulty is finding promising literature on the socio-cultural elements of smoking in South Korea as there does not seem to be too many. However, I feel that using the existing literature effectively, although limited in number, will suffice in providing a broad overview of the topic.