Abstract
Background: Saitama Prefectural University prohibited smoking in all university buildings and grounds in June 2005.
Method: To evaluate the effect of a 5-year total ban on smoking, 6947 students were surveyed using a self-reported questionnaire on smoking attitudes every April from 2005 to 2010. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted on the response variable of smoking (0 no, 1 yes) and with the explanatory variables of gender (0 women, 1 men), age, and survey year (2006 to 2010 compared to 2005).
Results: The odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) for smoking for each of the 5 years were: OR=0.626 (95%CI 0.419 to 0.935, p=0.022) in 2006, OR=0.549 (95%CI 0.373 to 0.808, p=0.002) in 2007, OR=0.524 (95%CI 0.361 to 0.758, p＜0.001) in 2008, OR=0.446 (95%CI 0.309 to 0.645, p＜0.001) in 2009, and OR=0.483 (95%CI 0.337 to 0.692, p＜0.001) in 2010, compared to 1.000 (reference) in 2005.
Conclusion: A total ban on smoking at a university reduced the ratio of student smokers.

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