As I was driving home one evening,
I noticed a construction worker carrying one of my favorite things: coffee; and, one of my least favorite things: a cigarette.
I have always been curious about the global numbers of smoking and the
effect of the tobacco industry in developing countries, so I decided to do a
little more research for my blog post this week.
In a
study by Jha & Peto (2014), researchers look to an interesting ratio to
measure the success of tobacco control. In developed worlds (USA, Europe, etc.) among
men and women 45-64 years old, there are about as many current smokers as there
are former smokers. In contrast, in
developing countries, among in this same age category, there are much fewer
former smokers than current smokers.
This shows that while smoking in the developed worlds has plateaued or
even decreased, it has increased in developing worlds (Table 1).
Why the
decrease in developed countries and not developing countries? Some point fingers at the effects of advertising
– according to WHO (2013), one third of cigarette use that starts in youths
occurs as a result of tobacco promotion and advertisement. Attracting new users is the main reason tobacco
companies spend tens of billions of dollars on advertising, promotion, and
sponsorship (WHO, 2013). The effects of advertisement
bans are especially visible in Australia, where already existing bans have been
strengthened by the introduction of “plain packaging” in 2011 (Jha & Peto, 2014). Out of curiosity, I investigated these
effects a little further and found Figure 1 on the Australian Government’s
website (2016).
Others may point a finger at
tobacco pricing – doubling the price of cigarettes in developed countries and
tripling the price in developing countries has the potential to reduce smoking
worldwide by a third. In the US and UK,
cigarette consumption has taken nearly 30 years to reduce by half. In contrast, with the use of large tax
increases, France and South Africa reduced tobacco consumption by half in just
15 years (Jha & Peto, 2014).
How do we reduce tobacco use while respecting
the rights of a TNC? What are some
unforeseen consequences of some of these interventions (ban on advertisement,
increased taxation, etc.)? What other
global effects do you see? Think about positive deviance that we learned about this past week, what are the areas with low numbers doing right?
References
Australian
Government Department of Health. (2016, June 29). Tobacco Control key facts and figures. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/tobacco-kff
Jha, P., & Peto, R. (2014). Global effects
of smoking, of quitting, and of taxing tobacco. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(1), 60-68.
World Health Organization. (2013). WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2013: enforcing
bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. World Health Organization.
Lisa .. Great post!
ReplyDeleteAs I am originally from a developing country, I used to see the widespread use of cigarettes among people, especially among those of low socio-economic status (SES). The nicotine content of cigarettes is addective, consequently quiting smoking after a very long period of addiction is extremely difficult. This makes people spend a lot of money on cigarettes which could cause a financial disaster on the family level.
In the developing world, where people struggle under harsh structural and financial conditions, the belief linking stress relief and smoking predominates which positively influences cigarette purchasing despite the relative high cigarette prices.
I totally agree with you that Advertisements play a great role as well. I admire the Australian model of the ban on cigarette advertising and really wish it can be generalized worldwide!
Lisa, I believe you raise a lot of good points in your post. The campaign(s) to reduce smoking in the United States at least, have been making improvements consistently through the years. The percentage of smokers has reduced by about 1% every year. Other factors to consider are how the United States production companies are not allowed to show smoking in most productions. We have increased tax rates (as you have pointed out). We are also moving to restrict more and more locations of where smoking can occur. I believe it is our efforts that are making the most impact. I do not know if our methods would work on developing countries, but it would be worth the effort.
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