Smoking incidence down

The incidence of tobacco use in the Americas has dropped to 17 percent, which is below the global average of 20 percent, according to a new report by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
However, while the PAHO says that progress has been made to address the ‘tobacco epidemic in the Americas’, it adds that more than one-third of countries in the region have yet to implement the highest level of effective tobacco control measures.
Governments must urgently increase efforts to apply these measures and save lives, says the PAHO’s Regional Report on Tobacco Control in the Americas 2018.
“While we are certainly heading in the right direction when it comes to reducing the number of tobacco users and protecting the population from the adverse effects of tobacco exposure, we are just not moving fast enough,” said Dr. Anselm Hennis, director of the Non-communicable Diseases and Mental Health Unit at PAHO.
“The fact remains that more than 2,000 people die each day in the Americas as a direct consequence of tobacco use and this epidemic will continue unless countries accelerate the speed at which effective policies are being implemented.”
The report highlights the progress that countries in the Americas have made towards implementing the measures outlined in the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. These measures include regulations to protect people from tobacco smoke by establishing 100 percent smoke-free environments; the mandatory inclusion of large, graphic health warnings on all tobacco packaging; raising taxes on tobacco; and a total ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
But it reports that 12 out of 35 countries in the Americas have yet to implement even one of these ‘effective tobacco control measures’.
And it says that while implementation of tobacco control measures has increased in the region over the past decade, progress has recently slowed down.