Tobacco control policies working

Tobacco-control programs helped 53 million people in 88 countries quit smoking between 2008 and 2014, according to a HealthDay story citing a new study published by Tobacco Control.

The researchers were said to have concluded that convincing 53 million people to quit smoking had resulted in 22 million fewer premature deaths from smoking.

‘Our findings show the enormous and continuing potential to saving millions of lives by implementing tobacco control policies that have been proven to work,’ said the study’s lead author, David Levy, professor of oncology at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C, US.

“These new findings can help those countries … better understand the powerful public health impact they offer,’ he said in a hospital news release.

The new study reviewed the effect of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which began in 2005.

As of 2015, 186 countries had ratified the convention and at least 88 of the countries had put at least one of its measures into effect, the researchers said.

The study’s authors estimated that higher cigarette taxes contributed to 7.0 million lives saved, smoke-free laws helped save 5.4 million lives, health warnings contributed 4.1 million lives saved, marketing bans helped save 3.8 million lives, and quit-smoking efforts saved 1.5 million lives.

The researchers said the numbers had been boosted by the recent implementation of measures in Bangladesh (health warnings and higher taxes), the Russian Federation (smoke-free laws and advertising restrictions) and Vietnam (health warnings).