Public Health
Volume 124, Issue 8 , Pages 437-443, August 2010

Agreement among multiple measures of self-reported smoking status in Chinese urban residents

  • T. Yang

      Affiliations

    • Centre for Tobacco Control Research, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310058, China
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Tel.: +86 571 88208219; fax: +86 571 88910855.
    • ,
  • I.R.H. Rockett

      Affiliations

    • Injury Control Research Center and Department of Community Medicine, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-9190, USA
    • ,
  • Y. Wu

      Affiliations

    • Institute of Health Education, Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100011, China
    • ,
  • W.W. Chen

      Affiliations

    • Department of Health Education and Behavior, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
    • ,
  • Z. Lu

      Affiliations

    • Department of Epidemiology, Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou 221002, China

Received 3 October 2009; received in revised form 8 March 2010; accepted 18 April 2010. published online 09 August 2010.

Summary 

Objective

To compare five alternative self-report methods for assessing the smoking status of Chinese urban residents, and to estimate their reliability or agreement.

Study design

Cross-sectional survey with multistage sampling.

Methods

Cross-sectional survey data were collected from residents in two Chinese cities, and the prevalence of smoking and smoking frequency were estimated by means of six methods of self-report labelled SMD, SM1, SM6, SMF, SMC and SM. SM, the method of smoking assessment endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), served as a referent in estimating agreement among the domestic methods. Cohen’s κ measured overall intermethod agreement.

Results

Data on 1167 eligible respondents were analysed. κ values ranged from 0.79 to 0.89 for current smoking, from 0.84 to 0.94 for daily smoking, and from 0.23 to 0.62 for occasional smoking. Compared with the referent (SM, 61%), SMD (53%), SM1 (57%), SM6 (54%) and SMC (55%) significantly understated the prevalence of current smoking among Chinese urban residents. SM1 (11%), SM6 (10%), SMD (6%) and SMC (6%) significantly understated the prevalence of occasional smoking compared with the refererent (SM, 14%). No variation emerged in prevalence estimates of daily smoking.

Conclusions

Despite some variability, the five domestic methods used to assess smoking status in China generally produced similar results to those based on SM, the method advocated by WHO. Discrepancies between domestic assessment methods peaked in estimating the prevalence of occasional smoking.

Keywords: Smoking, Smoking measure, China

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PII: S0033-3506(10)00122-8

doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2010.04.005

Public Health
Volume 124, Issue 8 , Pages 437-443, August 2010

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