One such group is women in the northern region. Tobacco is grown in this region and smoking amongst women has a longer history than other areas. Lung cancer is the most common form of cancer amongst northern Thai women reflecting their higher rate of smoking. This area has also experienced the greatest decline in the rate of women smoking, which has remained static elsewhere in Thailand. In a study by Wangsuphachart et al, smoking was found to be related to occupation quite strongly.
Smoking rates are also higher amongst women who have been educated outside Thailand.
This may be partially explained by the nature of the work women engage in and the higher levels of social acceptability smoking has in these sub-cultures. A recent study on the factors affecting the smoking behaviour amongst Thai women found that the age of women's initial smoking experience, the exposure to smoking environments, the number of people in the household who smoked and the number of cigarettes they smoked correlated with the decision to take up smoking or not. Whilst high in the aforementioned sub-groups, tobacco consumption amongst most Thai women is not a huge problem. It is feared, however, that tobacco companies will attempt to target Thai women as they have in other countries by producing womens brands . This has already happened once and health advocates are wary of new attempts.