In March 2011, the New Zealand Government committed to a goal of New Zealand becoming ‘smokefree’ by the year 2025, where less than 5% of the population smokes. The Health Promotion Agency’s Youth Insights Survey monitors Year 10 students’ behaviours, attitudes and knowledge on a range of tobacco-related topics, including the Smokefree 2025 goal.
Methodology
Participants in the 2012 YIS were asked about whether they were aware of the ‘Smokefree 2025’ goal, if they thought the goal is achievable, and if they thought many people would still be smoking in the year 2025.
Responses to these questions were examined by:
•smoking status
1.never smoked
2.current smokers (smoke at least monthly)
3.ex (no longer smoke) and experimental (smoke less often than monthly) smokers
•susceptibility to smoking
1.non-susceptible never smokers (who said they would ‘definitely not’ accept a cigarette offered by their best friend or smoke a cigarette during the next 12 months)
2.susceptible never smokers
•ethnicity
•gender.
When looking at the differences by ethnicity and gender we have controlled for smoking status. This means that we take into account whether or not a respondent smokes, to ensure that any differences found by ethnicity or gender are not in fact due to the respondent’s own smoking status. Only those differences between groups that were statistically significant (p<.05) are reported.
Key Results
- Around three in 10 young people were aware of the government’s ‘Smokefree 2025’ goal. A similar proportion thought the goal is achievable.
- Around two in 10 young people thought that hardly anybody will be smoking by 2025.
- Those who had never smoked and were not susceptible to taking up smoking were the most likely to think the ‘Smokefree 2025’ goal is achievable.