An Antismoking 'Call to Action'
A new World Health Organization study calls for regulation,cheap cigarettes education, and taxation to combat rising smoking rates in the developing world Smoking may be on the decline in the U.S., but globally the habit is still on the rise. That's one of the main takeaways from a new report by the World Health Organization. The data-packed report outlines the state of smoking around the world and offers six policy prescriptions for governments to curb tobacco use. "It's a call to action," says Dr. Douglas Bettcher, director of the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative.
The specific guidelines, which the WHO calls "MPOWER," include more rigorous monitoring of tobacco use, more smoke-free places, tobacco cessation services, better labeling of cigarette packaging and public health education, wider bans and enforcement on tobacco advertising, and higher taxes. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan announced the recommendations at a press conference Feb. 7 in New York. She was accompanied by Michael Bloomberg, who as New York's mayor has pushed through aggressive smoking bans in the city and whose personal foundation has donated millions to antismoking efforts and funded the MPOWER report.
The report calls specific attention to the rising smoking rates in developing nations. China, India, and Indonesia, for example, are the world's three largest tobacco-consuming countries by volume. According to research firm Euromonitor International, cigarette consumption in those nations is expected to grow at annual rates of about 3%, 1%, and 4%, respectively, out to 2011. The WHO says about 5.4 million people die from tobacco-related causes every year, and that figure will rise to 8 million per year by 2030. In particular, warns the report, the developing world will be hardest hit, with 80% of those deaths expected to be in low- or middle-income nations.
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