New York Chinatown Fights Smoking as Lung Cancer Deaths Increase

Outside of Big Wong, a Cantonese restaurant in Manhattan's Chinatown, a man took a puff of cigarette watching people pass by.

The 70-year-old said he had been smoking for more than 50 years.

"I started smoking when I was in China. It's an old bad habit, "he said.

It would not give its name – a familiar answer from smokers who often say that they are ashamed to talk about it.

In Chinatown, the habit has become notorious, with a higher proportion of men smoking than any other ethnic community in New York City.

Health officials said the figure was 27% and lung cancer incidents were on the rise.

With more than 100 new cases in the neighborhood over the past five years, the Sino-US community has one of the highest rates of illness in the city, according to the Ministry of Health.

Chinese accounted for more than half of new cases diagnosed. While the number of lung cancer deaths was down 16 percent in the city, between 2000 and 2014, they rose 70 percent among the Chinese, according to a report.

Alarmed by the trend, the city recently launched its first anti-smoking campaign aimed specifically at Chinese men.

The Chinese-American Medical Society is one of the organizations that organize the campaign, which included a no-smoking day in September. Free counseling, testing and patches were given at Columbus Park and the residents were subjected to checkups.

Dr. Chun Yip, Clinical Professor at Columbia University Medical Center, who participated in the event,

said that only three of the 50 people tested that day had an abnormal slow peak flow – the amount of air coming out of the lungs.

Liverpool blues: the sad decline of Europe's oldest Chinatown

But in a neighborhood where smokers and restaurateurs make up the majority of smokers, health advocacy groups struggle to make progress.

"We do not know how to reach them," said Warren Chin, executive director of the US-Chinese Medical Society.

"We tried to contact them through their employers and talk to them about this issue of smoking, but nothing motivated them to help them."

The company is trying to get its message across with press conferences on the consequences of smoking and a national phone line to help people quit smoking.

May Koo, a Chinese language consultant at Asian Smokers' Quitline, said it was difficult to reach restaurant workers and builders because of their schedules and long hours of work.

"Many Chinese foodservice workers in New York will work at 7 am and leave at 12 noon. Smoking is the only time they can take a break, "said Koo.

According to a study, the Chinese will live longer than the Americans by 2040 and the Spanish the longest

She also said that workers under heavy pressure smoke to cope with stress.

One of the factors that prevents Chinese people from quitting smoking is their long history of smoking.

Leo Li, a health coach with the smoking cessation program at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, said most people who sought help had been smoking for at least a decade.

"They started smoking since their stay in China, where smoking is even more common and where the work environment here only perpetuates this habit," Li said.

Many Chinese restaurant workers in New York will work at 7am and leave at 12pm. Smoking is the only time they can take a break

May Koo

China has the largest number of smokers in the world. In 2014, the government estimated that there were 300 million smokers in China.

Li said that most of the people he was helping were middle-aged men who smoked up to 20 cigarettes a day.

Similarly, Koo 's clients were mostly in their fifties or sixties, and some started smoking as early as the age of 12.

The story continues