Date: 5/25/2011
TUMSPR News: The second cause of death after hypertension is tobacco smoking and as the World Health Organization warns it kills one in every 10 adults. The day is observed on May 31, 2011.
World No Tobacco Day is observed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and on May 31, 2011 to highlight the health risks associated with the disease. As the Organization warns, the death toll related to this old running habit of human societies is one in every ten adults and it is only second to hypertension. Tobacco use has been said to be the number one preventable epidemic.
Dating back to 1987, the year of its establishment by the World Health Assembly, this day is observed all over the world as it is done in Iran. The event tries to take the message to communities and help control its use.
Tobacco is believed to kill about 6000,000 people annually or one in every six seconds and the toll will increase to > 8000,000 by 2030. More than 80% of the world’s one billion smokers live in low and middle-income countries although tobacco consumption is decreasing in some high-income and upper middle-income countries (1)
Causing 100 million deaths in the 20th century, tobacco is estimated to kill about ten times this figure, one billion, at the end of 21st century.
In 2004, 40% of children, 33% of male non-smokers and 35% of female non-smokers were exposed to second-hand smoke (2). The second-hand smoking was responsible for 1.0% of the mortality and 0.7% of the burden of disease in 2004 (3). The figure for deaths related to second-hand smoking is 600,000 per year (4).
Surveys to assess tobacco smoking epidemics and its related death in different societies will undoubtedly play a key role in adopting policies to curb its use but unfortunately low and middle-income countries do not even have minimal information about its use and the burden it is leaving on the health system.
Iran has been helping in the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI)
Iran data on Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS) in 2007 can be viewed at this address. Iranian Anti Tobacco Association (IATA) has been active in recent years in launching campaigns against tobacco smoking. Iran has been also part of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) and has been prohibiting shopkeepers to sell cigarettes to the youth. The GYTS is a school-based survey that collects data from 13-15 year-old school students.
References
1- http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/index.html
2- http://www.who.int/gho/phe/secondhand_smoke/exposure/en/index.html
3- http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interactive_charts/phe/shs_mbd/GHO_phe_shs_mbd.html
4- http://www.who.int/gho/phe/secondhand_smoke/burden/en/index.html
http://publicrelations.tums.ac.ir/english/news/detail.asp?newsID=24795
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