Objectives: To investigate the changes of smoking habits of college students for 6-years.
Methods: About 6,500 students were followed by signed self-registering survey on smoking habits and consciousness in annual-health-checkup from their administration to graduation (final school year) during 6-years period(from April 2004 to April 2009)in medium-sized universities, in the Kansai urban area, where smoking is prohibited in buildings. The results were compared in each school year.
Results: 6,224 students were followed (follow-up rate: 66.1%, age: 18.28 ± 1.32 years old, male: 4,172, female: 2,052). Although the smoking rate on admission decreased annually during the 6-years, the smoking rate tended to increase rapidly after admission. In particular, the smoking rate increased significantly from the second to third school year. The rate of smoking experience also increased after admission, especially from the second to third year.
Conclusion: Although the university new student's smoking rate decreased gradually every year, smokers increased in number rapidly as the grade progressed. The increase in smoking rate and the smoking experience rate were the greatest in sophomore students during 6-years after implementation of the Health Promotion Law.

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Abstract
Objectives: We examined the usefulness of participatory education for smoking prevention, which was provided to university freshmen 9 months after their admission, by comparing the results obtained 15 months after the education.
Methods: For 220 students who belonged to the extracurricular activities group, I carried out prevention of participation type smoking education in January, 2008 nine months after the entrance to school. I divided the student who entered it in April, 2007 into two groups of student group (I call it participation group) and the student group who did not participate (I call it non-participation group) which participated in prevention of smoking education. I chased responses to a registered self-recording survey for smoking situations during the annual health check-up until (after intervention 15 months) in April, 2009 and compared the smoking situation between two groups. I carried out prevention of participation type smoking education mainly on a lecture and the student-based group work in the participation group and established the opportunity of video reading of the participation type smoking prevention education to the student except the participation group in school members.
Results: The follow-up rates during the interval from university admission to 15 months after the participatory education for smoking prevention were 99.5% (219 students aged 18.13 ± 0.409 years) and 75.3% (1,053 students aged 18.34 ± 1.179 years) in the participation and non-participation groups, respectively. The male and female ratio was approx. 2:1 in both groups. In the participation group, the smoking rate increased by 4.1% from second to third year, after the participatory education for smoking prevention. However, in the non-participation group, the rate increased by 9.5% from second to third year. The smoking experience rate of male students was increased by 12.4% (from 33.1% to 45.5%) from first to third year in the participation group, while the rate in the non-participation group was increased by 27.3% (from 34.5% to 61.8%), suggesting that the increase in smoking experience rate in the participation group was inhibited, compared to that in the non-participation group. The ratio of students in the participation group who said that education for smoking prevention for children at a school would be necessary was significantly higher than that in the non-participation group.
Conclusion: It was suggested that the participatory education for smoking prevention for university freshmen would be effective even after more than 1 year had passed since the education.

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