Smoking among Doctors: Governmentality, Embodiment, and the Diversion of Blame in Contemporary China

Kohrman, Matthew

doi:10.1080/01459740701831401

Cited by 36 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Groups particularly subject to the gifting norm include businessmen, government officials and doctors who find songyan , fayan and smoking to be a critical part of professional and personal success 2 87 88. The practice has contributed to an estimated 60% smoking prevalence in 1996 among male Chinese doctors 88 89.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Transnational tobacco industry promotion of the cigarette gifting custom in China

2011

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Objective To understand how British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris (PM) researched the role and popularity of cigarette gifting in forming relationships among Chinese customs and how they exploited the practice to promote their brands State Express 555 and Marlboro. Methods Searches and analysis of industry documents from the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library complemented by searches on LexisNexis Academic news, online search engines and information from the tobacco industry trade press. Results From 1980–1999, BAT and PM employed Chinese market research firms to gather consumer information about perceptions of foreign cigarettes and the companies discovered that cigarettes, especially prestigious ones, were gifted and smoked purposely for building relationships and social status in China. BAT and PM promoted their brands as gifts by enhancing cigarette cartons and promoting culturally themed packages, particularly during the gifting festivals of Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival to tie their brands in to festival values such as warmth, friendship and celebration. They used similar marketing in Chinese communities outside China. Conclusions BAT and PM tied their brands to Chinese cigarette gifting customs by appealing to social and cultural values of respect and personal honour. Decoupling cigarettes from their social significance in China and removing their appeal would probably reduce cigarette gifting and promote a decline in smoking. Tobacco control efforts in countermarketing, large graphic warnings and plain packaging to make cigarette packages less attractive as gifts could contribute to denormalising cigarette gifting.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The practice has contributed to an estimated 60% smoking prevalence in 1996 among male Chinese doctors 88 89. Because China's doctors bear some responsibility for the country's high smoking rates, doctors should cease offering and accepting cigarettes among themselves and from patients' families.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational tobacco industry promotion of the cigarette gifting custom in China

2011

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“…A major barrier to the implementation of smoke-free policies in Chinese hospitals is the common practice of patients’ relatives proffering cigarettes to doctors 30. It has also been reported that smoking behavior by the director and other senior members of the ward hospital staff influences smoking behavior by junior surgeons 35.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smoking Knowledge, Attitudes, Behavior, and Associated Factors Among Chinese Male Surgeons

et al. 2009

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Background The purpose of this study was to understand and assess the smoking knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and associated factors among Chinese male surgeons. Methods A total of 823 Chinese male surgeons from six cities in China participated in a survey of smoking knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in 2004. This study presents descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses of factors associated with the respondents' smoking behavior and smoking cessation activity. Results The current smoking prevalence for Chinese male surgeons was 45.2, and 42.5% of respondents reported having smoked in front of their patients. Few of the respondents always asked patients about their smoking status (25%) or advised smokers to quit smoking (27.2%). Logistic regression models found that current smoking status was significantly associated (P \ 0.05) with the surgeons' knowledge of the harms of active and passive smoking and their attitudes toward smoke-free hospitals and health role modeling by physicians. Smoking in front of patients was significantly associated (P \ 0.05) with the respondents' knowledge of active smoking harms, attitudes toward smoke-free hospitals, and cigarette consumption. The surgeons' smoking cessation activity was significantly associated (P \ 0.05) with their knowledge about the harms of active smoking, their rates of advising patients to quit smoking, and their knowledge of the harms of passive smoking. Conclusions Male surgeons have the highest smoking prevalence among Chinese physicians. They should actively participate in tobacco control training and education to improve their knowledge and attitudes toward smoking, which will improve their own smoking behavior and smoking cessation practices. Only by engaging all parts of the health care system, including surgeons, can China make headway against its tobacco epidemic.

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“…Augmenting these streams have been ethnographic descriptions of cigarette smoking framed vis-à-vis views of wellness (Mock 2000), social exchange (Kohrman 2008), and substances such as marijuana (Lipset 2006) and betel-nut (Reid 1985, Strickland 2002 (Stellman & Resnicow 1997) to genetics (Swan et al 2003) and the use of alcohol (Cameron & Jones 1985). Nearly all these studies approach cigarette smoking as acutely addictive; some consider how biological habituation is shaped by employment (Longo et al 2001), norms (Hosking et al 2009), and diverse cross-cultural expressions of dependency (Quintero & Nichter 1996, Shadel et al 2000.…”

Section: Usage Addiction and Cessationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bringing anthropological methods to bear on how within or across states some governments interdict while others promote cigarettes can offer productive fodder for current theoretical work on the ways mass promotion of life and death by the state are mutually dependent and frequently mobilized today under the rubrics of international development, public health, and consumer fulfillment (Agamben 1998;Banerjee 2006;Fassin 2007;Kohrman 2007Kohrman , 2008.…”

Section: Global Public Health Government and State Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tobacco

Kohrman

Benson

2011

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

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Anthropologists have long studied tobacco, what is today the world's greatest cause of preventable death. Their publications have garnered modest attention, however, even as the academy is increasingly interested in global health, transnational commoditization, pharmaceuticals, and the politics of life and death. We take stock of anthropology's tobacco literature and our discipline's broader appetites. We review how colleagues have studied health issues related to tobacco and engaged with theory and policy pertaining to the production, consumption, and regulation of drugs. We assess ways scholars working at the interface of anthropology and cigarettes have analyzed gender and ethnicity, corporate predation and industry-related harm, governmental management of disease, and the semiotics of misinformation. We discuss why anthropology has not more broadly and ardently engaged the study of tobacco. And we identify areas for further research capable of illuminating more fully tobacco's analytical potential and toxic effects.

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Smoking among Doctors: Governmentality, Embodiment, and the Diversion of Blame in Contemporary China

Cited by 36 publications

References 39 publications

Transnational tobacco industry promotion of the cigarette gifting custom in China

Transnational tobacco industry promotion of the cigarette gifting custom in China

Smoking Knowledge, Attitudes, Behavior, and Associated Factors Among Chinese Male Surgeons

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