Despite the abundance of scientific evidence confirming the health consequences of smoking and other forms of tobacco use, the tobacco epidemic remains an important public health problem and by 2030 it is predicted that more than 80% of tobacco deaths will be in developing countries. In Africa and the Middle East, many local factors contribute to the initiation and maintenance of tobacco use. A...

INTRODUCTION Thailand ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on November 8, 2004. The WHO FCTC requires all parties to inform all persons of the health consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. Each party has agreed to develop, implement and evaluate effective tobacco control programs to measure progress in reaching t...

The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) is a component of Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS) under auspices of the Bloomberg philanthropy and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. GATS is a household survey with a standard protocol and its goals are to measure tobacco use, to assess changes due to policy and to facilitate cross country comparison. China is the largest consumer and produc...

OBJECTIVE To measure the implementation of WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Article 5.3 at country level using a new Tobacco Industry Interference Index and to report initial results using this index in seven Southeast Asian countries. METHODS Score sheet based on WHO FCTC Article 5.3 Guidelines sent to correspondents in seven Southeast Asian countries, using a scoring syste...

Tobacco use is described as the single most preventable cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with the World Bank predicting over 450 million tobacco-related deaths in the next fifty years. In India, the proportion of all deaths that can be attributed to tobacco use is expected to rise from 1.4% in 1990 to 13.3% in 2020 of which smoking alone will cause about 930,000 adult deaths by 2010. ...

Illicit trade in tobacco products presents a threat to public health because it undermines the use of tax and price policies, which are among the most effective mechanisms for reducing tobacco consumption. Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) are in the final stages of negotiating a protocol aimed at strengthening international cooperation in the fight against illic...