Advocacy for tobacco control in India – A step forward

Abstract

Tobacco use is the main cause of preventable death in the world today, accounting for nearly six million deaths each year. This is higher than the number of deaths due to tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome andmalaria combined. In the next two decades, the annual death toll from tobacco is expected to rise to over 8million, withmore than 80% of these deaths expected to occur in lowand middle-income countries. Tobacco poses a major public health challenge in India, being the second largest consumer of tobacco products and the second largest producer of tobacco in the world. The Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2010 estimated that there were 275 million users of tobacco, 163.7 million users of smokeless tobacco, 69.1 million smokers and 42.1 million users of both smoking and smokeless tobacco in India. The prevalence of overall tobacco use was 47.9% and 20.2% among men and women, respectively. Nearly two in five (38.4%) adults in rural areas and one in four (25.3%) adults in urban areas used tobacco in some form. Advocacy is an established strategy for tobacco control. The ultimate goal of any advocacy effort is to achieve effective, comprehensive, enforced tobacco control laws and policies. Prevention is clearly the most cost-effective measure for tobacco control. The role of public health advocacy in securing