SMOKING, HEALTH KNOWLEDGE, AND ANTISMOKING CAMPAIGNS - AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY IN TAIWAN

This paper uses a measure of health knowledge of smoking hazards to in vestigate the determinants of health knowledge and its effect on smoki ng behavior, In our analysis, two equations are estimated: smoking par ticipation and health knowledge, The simultaneity problem in estimatin g smoking behavior and health knowledge is also considered. Overall, t he estimated results suggest that anti-smoking campaigns have a signif icantly positive effect on the public's health knowledge, and this hea lth knowledge in turn, has a significantly negative effect on smoking participation. The health knowledge elasticities of smoking participat ion are -0.48 and -0.56 for all adults and adult males, respectively.