Health advocacy for reducing smoking rates by Hamamatsu residents

Abstract

During the period of high economic growth in Japan, there was increased environmental destruction, water pollution, and air pollution in some areas. Therefore, the local governments investigated and verified the environmental destruction and enacted ordinances containing regulations. The Japanese government started taking measures ten years after the local governments. Smoking regulations have become a social issue recently; however, Japan has delayed enacting measures. It is desirable for the public and private sectors to work together to solve the problems in local areas; however, this is challenging because local residents have to spend a lot of time dealing with land maintenance problems. The local government has continued to monitor the situation and provide active support, aiming to “think globally, act locally” (as defined by 1960s–1970s American activist René Jules Dubo). We have been enacting measures against the smoking problem in Hamamatsu City for twenty-three years to make our social environment smoke-free. As a result, the number of smoking areas has decreased, and the citizen smoking rate has fallen below 10%, contributing to the extension of healthy life expectancy in Hamamatsu City.