Analyzing Issues and a Status Investigation of studies on Tobacco Control Policies in South Korea

Abstract

For better and effective tobacco control, many countries have worked hard to develop and manage evidence for policy development and implementation. In South Korea, however, since 2007 the smoking rate among adults has been steady and the country still has the highest smoking rate in the world. So, we selected four tobacco control policies which have already been recognized as effective and should be urgently implemented in Korea. The policies were; tobacco tax increase; ban of tobacco product marketing, promotion and sponsorship; graphic health warning; and smoke-free law. The study then collected controversial issues around the four selected policies, and tried to find scientific evidence (local evidence) to support the issues from the government funded research and peer-reviewed articles on tobacco control. We analyzed 17 government funded research and 110 articles from the various journals to identify the research which can be applied to the issues around the four policies. As a result, we found that the Korean evidence pays attention to answer the question why a particular policy should be implemented. There were not enough evidence that could be applied to the issues. To strengthen evidence for better tobacco control, the government and tobacco control experts should ‘select and focus’ on specific and urgent topics or policies. The government and tobacco control experts should clearly and fully understand the detailed controversial issues around tobacco control policy, which usually disturb the implementation of strong tobacco control policy, and they need to continually provide local evidence to successfully respond to the arguments. Furthermore, there needs to be a tactic or a plan to improve the use of current evidence. A development of ‘Archive for tobacco control research and data’ can be a possible solution to improve the use of current evidence.