Changing attitudes towards tobacco control policies contributed to Cambodia’s lower smoking prevalence.
The number of smokers in Cambodia decreased by 20% between 2014 and 2021, according to recent study results.
Citizen News Service (CNS) reported that the prevalence of smoking cigarettes overall has decreased from 16.6% in 2014 to 13.04% in 2021, according to the results of Cambodia's National Adults Tobacco Survey 2021. Men were 6.93% less likely to smoke cigarettes than women were (from 32.3% in 2014 to 25.37% in 2021). Women's cigarette smoking prevalence decreased as well, falling from 2.4% in 2014 to 2.05% in 2021.
Cambodians’ attitudes are also shifting, with 95.75% of survey respondents favoring raising the price of tobacco goods and 95% supporting raising the cigarette tax.
As per Cambodian law, smoking is prohibited in all indoor workplaces and indoor public places. In 2021, significantly fewer persons than in 2014 were exposed to cigarette smoke. By 2021, only 27% of people were exposed to cigarette smoke at home, down from 66% in 2014. In a similar vein, the percentage of people exposed to cigarette smoke at work decreased by half, from 48% in 2014 to 24% in 2021. However, exposure to tobacco smoke in public transport rose from 33% in 2014 to 62% by 2021.
Cambodian law also requires a picture warning to cover 50% and a text warning to cover 5% of the upper front and upper back panels of all tobacco product packages. According to the survey, more than 90% of males and 89.65% of females saw the health warning on cigarette packages in the past 30 days, while 84.10% of men and 82.5% of women responded in favor of larger pictorial health warnings on cigarette packets.