TTURC Researchers Marion Ceraso and Xiaodong Kuang are conducting research into how to help Chinese smokers quit. Kuang is a UW grad student in mass-communication science while Ceraso is a researcher at the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Their challenge is immense. Chinese citizens—mostly men—smoke a third of the world’s cigarettes, and experts estimate a million Chinese smokers die each year from their tobacco use.

But Ceraso and Kuang hope the first step to turning the tide is to educate Chinese doctors on the dangers of tobacco use, how to treat it and the importance of leading by example. Barriers include a 50-percent smoking rate among Chinese doctors and cultural norms such as giving cigarettes as gifts.

Along with colleagues at the FuXing Hospital in Beijing and Inner Mongolia Hospital in Hohhot, Ceraso and Kuang conducted a baseline survey and focus groups among doctors and discovered that many view quitting smoking as a matter of will power, and that healthcare facilities don’t typically offer medications or coaching to help people quit. Doctors who accept cigarettes as gifts are less likely to treat their patients who smoke. And smoke-free air policies in many hospitals are not enforced.

Undaunted, the dynamic duo is working with colleagues in China and the U.S. to build culturally appropriate strategies for change.

A disturbing trend: Cigarettes are getting into the hands of Chinese children.

Xiaodong Kuang and Marion Ceraso are working with Chinese doctors to help them quit smoking and treat patients who want to quit.