Tobacco control in the Sustainable Development Goals: a precarious inclusion? (original) (raw)
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Tobacco control and sustainable development: shared challenges and future opportunities
Journal of Health Inequalities, 5 (1), pp.71-79, 2019
In recent years, scholars and public health officials have increasingly perceived tobacco as a threat to sustainable development. This article explores how stronger tobacco control efforts can contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. Most obviously, given that tobacco use and exposure account for over 7.2 million deaths annually, tobacco control is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being. However, the article also shows how tobacco is, among others, a driver of poverty and inequalities , a threat to sustainable economic growth, a challenge to the environment, and an obstacle to good governance. In effect, tobacco hinders progress on a host of other SDGs. Particular emphasis is placed on SDG 17: Partnership for the goals. While tobacco control partnerships for the past decades have helped attain public health progress globally, there is a risk of this SDG being hijacked by the tobacco industry and other corporate actors, who use it as a tool to justify the proliferation of public-private partnerships. Finally , the article calls for greater cross-disciplinary thinking and closer collaboration between tobacco control and development scholars, which could be crucial in designing successful tobacco control interventions in low-and middle-income countries, and could help achieve the Sustainable Development Agenda.
The Millennium Development Goals and tobacco control
Global Health Promotion, 2010
The eight Millennium Development Goals were proposed by the UN Secretary-General in 2001. They are goals with measurable targets to be achieved by 2015 or earlier. The Goals were distilled from the 2000 United Nations Millennium Declaration, a sweeping statement of development values, principles, objectives and proposed actions. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is a demonstrable translation of some of the ideas in the Millennium Declaration into reality. With 165i Parties, the FCTC does more than just improve global tobacco control: • The FCTC contributes to achievement of many of the Millennium Development Goals, and benefits from success in implementation of the Goals in other sectors. • The treaty itself is a demonstration of strengthened international and national rule of law, central tenets of the Millennium Declaration. • The FCTC expands international law into the health sector and provides better balance of international law among economic, environmental, s...
Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, 2013
Much of the research used to support the ratification of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) was conducted in high-income countries or in highly controlled environments. Therefore, for the global tobacco control community to make informed decisions that will continue to effectively inform policy implementation, it is critical that the tobacco control community, policy makers, and funders have updated information on the state of the science as it pertains to provisions of the FCTC. Following the National Cancer Institute's process model used in identifying the research needs of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's relatively new tobacco law, a core team of scientists from the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco identified and commissioned internationally recognized scientific experts on the topics covered within the FCTC. These experts analyzed the relevant sections of the FCTC and identified critical gaps in research that is needed to inform policy and practice requirements of the FCTC. This paper summarizes the process and the common themes from the experts' recommendations about the research and related infrastructural needs. Research priorities in common across Articles include improving surveillance, fostering research communication/collaboration across organizations and across countries, and tracking tobacco industry activities. In addition, expanding research relevant to low-and middle-income countries (LMIC), was also identified as a priority, including identification of what existing research findings are transferable, what new country-specific data are needed, and the infrastructure needed to implement and disseminate research so as to inform policy in LMIC.
Tobacco Control, 2000
Objective-To develop regional tobacco control research agendas for developing countries through a consultative process. Methods-Research for International Tobacco Control, located at the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Canada, convened three regional meetings for Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, and Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. Participation by researchers, policymakers, and advocates from a wide range of disciplines ensured an accurate representation of regional issues. Results-The four main recurring themes within each regional agenda were: (1) the lack of standardised and comparable data;
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and health promotion: strengthening the ties
Global Health Promotion, 2010
Successful tobacco control efforts in developed countries have provided an illustration of the application of health promotion principles, most notably the critical value of social mobilization for change and use of comprehensive health promotion strategies. Tobacco control efforts in developed countries are now starting to grapple with the challenge of closing the health equity gap. In developed countries, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), though derived from a global social movement, is facing challenges in implementation because of relatively little support from the population as a whole, along with weak government infrastructure. Furthermore, developing countries are often more concerned about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and access to primary health care, not to mention poverty alleviation in general, than tobacco use and non-communicable diseases. Health promotion and the FCTC have shared interests in relation to both health equity and capacity building. Therefore, a civil society coalition built around these common interests -and broader issues -may provide a stronger support for FCTC implementation. Strengthening the ties between health promotion and the FCTC could lead to stronger advocacy, better knowledge management systems, more integrated community-based programs, and stronger workforce capacity. These, in turn, could reduce tobacco smoking and other risks to health, as well as help close the health equity gap in developed and developing countries. (Global Health Promotion, 2010; Supp (1): pp. 76-80)
Nicotine & Tobacco Research
BackgroundFramework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) 2030 Program (2017–2021) was launched to accelerate World Health Organization (WHO) FCTC implementation in 15 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We evaluated the Program in six domains: Governance; Smoke-Free Policies; Taxation; Packaging and Health Warnings; Tobacco Advertising, Promotion, and Sponsorship (TAPS) bans; and International and Regional Cooperation.Aims and MethodsFollowing a mixed-methods design, we surveyed (June–September 2020) FCTC focal persons in 14 of the 15 countries, to understand the Program’s financial and technical inputs and progress made in each of the six domains. The data were coded in terms of inputs (financial = 1, technical = 1, or both = 2) and progress (none = 1, some = 2, partial = 3, or strong = 4) and a correlation was computed between the inputs and progress scores for each domain. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in five countries. We triangulated betwe...