Objectives: This research is conducted to investigate the health behavior and how the health education transmits in accordance with the smoking rate, the second-hand smoking exposure rate, beetle-nut eating rate and population of exercise around every town and village in Taichung County. Relative causes and effects on smoking behavior, second-hand smoking exposure, beetle-nut eating, regular exercise and the health diet are discussed. Methods: The cross-sectional study design in this research makes a phone survey over adults with our own hierarchically designed questionnaire. 1250 subjects are randomly selected in the population of Chunghwa Telecom customers over eighteen years old in Taichung County by multistage stratified systematic sampling design. Result: The smoking prevalence in Taichung County is 25.38% while the second-hand smoking exposure rate at home is 21.23% and that in the work place is 19.50%. When the outdoor second-hand smoking exposure rate is 57.78%, the outdoor second-hand smoking exposure rates in Long Jing and Houli, where the smoking prevalent rates are low(8.62% and 12.5%, respectively), are up to 62.50% and 56.25%, respectively. In addition, the major media from which citizens learn about the related health issues by governmental health administration are TV commercials and programs (81.26%) and newspapers (28.16%). Conclusion: The harm caused by the second-hand smoking can not be ignored when adjusting the smoking behavior in Taichung County is our top priority. We suggest that the health administration should make or carry on an effective health education program where the mass media play an important role and the influence of key persons is exerted on people. That would assist people to quit smoking successfully and improve on the information resources as well as the health education transmission.
