Six cities win tobacco-free performance

Twenty-one enterprises from six Chinese cities were rewarded for good performances in a tobacco-free campaign jointly initiated by health institutes from China and the US on Wednesday.

Launched by the Emory Global Health Institute - China Tobacco Control Partnership (GHI-CTP), National Cancer Institute (NCI) and ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development in April last year, the program aims to shield non-smokers from passive smoking, commonly known as "secondhand smoke", in work places and help those who do smoke to quit.

Anshan and Changchun from Northeast China, Hangzhou and Qingdao from East China, Tangshan from North China and Karamay from Northwest China were selected as participant cities. All had adopted local bans on smoking in public places before the program.

The winning enterprises include different sectors such as manufacturing, transportation, catering and IT. More than 240 enterprises with 400,000 employees participated in the program.

The program group provided guide and training to participants and monitored the progress of each participant.

Wang Ke'an, head of ThinkTank Research Center said the selected cities had set good models for China's smoking ban campaign and it is expected to cover more cities in near future.

"One thing is legislation and the other implementation. What an enterprise can contribute is vital to implementation of the ban as a large group of people can be influenced."

Dr Jeffrey P Koplan from Emory University of the US said China's smoking ban is progressing as the government supports and individual sectors and people play their parts. "We were very excited about the results of the winning enterprises. Some of them thought it is impossible before the program," he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, together with US President Barack Obama, signed an agreement to further push forward a partnership program to establish tobacco free work places during his state visit to the US in September.