Curbing the tobacco epidemic in the Americas
Date
2016Author
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Though the devastating health effects of tobacco use are well known, tobacco’s negative repercussions extend well beyond the obvious health outcomes. Tobacco consumption creates a significant economic burden on societies because of both the high costs of health care and the associated lost productivity. In addition, tobacco use contributes to health inequalities and exacerbates poverty within and between countries through the diversion of resources away from food and other essential needs as well as through foregone income. These and other adverse consequences of the tobacco epidemic disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, where more than 80% of the world’s smokers now live, including 127 million (or 11.4%), in the Region of the Americas. Considering its tremendous health and economic costs, the tobacco epidemic has the potential to undermine both social and economic development. The global response to tobacco is the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which has been ratified by 180 countries worldwide and 30 countries in the Americas. The FCTC provides a blueprint for governments to effectively curb the tobacco epidemic by implementing specific evidence-based interventions to reduce consumption. These include: adopting tax and price measures to reduce tobacco consumption; banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; creating smoke-free work and public spaces; requiring prominent health warnings on tobacco packages; and combating illicit trade in tobacco products. These interventions have been identified as “best buys” in the WHO Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, which calls for a 30% relative reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use by 2025. Of note, raising taxes has proven to be the single most potent and cost-effective strategy for reducing tobacco use...
Translated title
Cómo detener la epidemia del tabaquismo en la Región de las Américas
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Pan American Health Organization; Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health (NMH) (PAHOUnited StatesWashington, D.C., 2020)Tobacco use is the only risk factor common to the four leading noncommunicable diseases (cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease) and is the main cause of preventable deaths worldwide. ...
-
Sandoval, Rosa Carolina; Belausteguigoitia, Itziar; Hennis, Anselm (2016)Raising tobacco taxes is one of the core strategies outlined in the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to reduce the demand for tobacco products (1). According to the Guidelines ...
-
Pan American Health Organization (1992)Tobacco, as has been amply proven, is hazardous to people's health. Nevertheless, in many of the countries of the Americas increasing urbanization and changing lifestyles have resulted in greater use of tobacco. At the ...