ACCELERATING CHANGE: FOUNDATION BLOG

According to a World Health Organization report, worldwide, smoking killed more than 7 million people in 2017. It has claimed more than 5 million lives every year since 1990 and its contribution to overall disease burden is growing, especially in lower income countries. The negative effects of smoking extend well beyond individual and population health as smoking-related diseases lead to billions of dollars in lost productivity and health-care expenditures every year.

Against this backdrop, impressive steps have been taken to establish the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World as an independent entity committed to ending smoking, as recently outlined in The Lancet and BMJ Opinion.

Recently released data from Norway should cause public health professionals to sit up and take note. Cigarette users in Norway are turning to snus, a safer alternative to smoking, at a such a rate that snus users now outnumber cigarette users. In 2017, 12% of Norwegians used snus daily, compared to 11% who smoked cigarettes every day (a reduction from 22% in 2007). This switch to a safer product may come as a surprise to many in the tobacco control community, but not to those with a broad perspective of tobacco control, who recognize how smoking behaviors are evolving.

The Norway example demonstrates what is possible when governments don’t allow tobacco control policy to be straightjacketed by directives, such as the European Tobacco Control Directive, which outlawed snus in most European countries. Instead, Norway (which is not a member of the European Union) implemented sensible tobacco control policies that left room for alternatives in the marketplace. Those alternatives are helping people reduce their health risk through safer nicotine products, contributing to Norway having some of the better health indicators in the region.

The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World was established to address a major public health crisis and the world’s number one preventable cause of death: smoking. It was founded with the intent to bring needed resources, expertise, innovative thinking and a collaborative spirt to form partnerships, initiate dialogue, conduct research and take action more rapidly to rid the world of smoking and its harmful health impacts.

The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World was established to address a major public health crisis and the world’s number one preventable cause of death: smoking. It was founded with the intent to bring needed resources, expertise, innovative thinking and a collaborative spirt to form partnerships, initiate dialogue, conduct research and take action more rapidly to rid the world of smoking and its harmful health impacts.

It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I left my home in Pakistan to study in the UK. Back then, when I wanted to hear my family’s voice, I had to wait beside a landline telephone for what seemed like an eternity to get a three-minute, very expensive call from home. Compare that to communication technology now. Our mobile phones instantly connect us to the world 24 hours a day.

It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I left my home in Pakistan to study in the UK. Back then, when I wanted to hear my family’s voice, I had to wait beside a landline telephone for what seemed like an eternity to get a three-minute, very expensive call from home. Compare that to communication technology now. Our mobile phones instantly connect us to the world 24 hours a day.

The World Health Organization’s 2017 report on the global tobacco epidemic focuses on exciting progress made under the MPOWER strategy, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. It indicates nearly two thirds of the world’s population, about 4.7 billion people, is now protected by at least one best-practice tobacco control measure. That’s real progress over nearly ten years.

As a member of the tobacco control community who worked on the Bloomberg Initiative Grants Program (which helped fund policy development and implementation of MPOWER elements), I remember how MPOWER was almost blocked at the outset – ironically, by critics from the tobacco control community.