Dear CHIFA colleagues,
We are now beginning the fourth week of our deep-dive discussion on Tobacco and health, on HIFA English, CHIFA-English, HIFA-French, HIFA-Portuguese and HIFA-Spanish.
Nearly half of all children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke and 65 000 children die each year due to illnesses related to second-hand smoke.
And most people who are addicted to tobacco today started smoking when they were still children, typically at age 15 or 16 and often due to peer pressure.
Around 207,000 children aged 11-15 start smoking every year *in the UK alone [https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2013/03/22/more-than-200000-uk-childre.... This suggests that tens of thousands of people start smoking *every day* around the world.
1. To what extent do children - and their parents - understand the health, socio-economic and environmental harms of using tobacco products? What matters to them? How can they be better informed?
2. Do health workers have adequate knowledge to prevent tobacco addiction in children? How can they be better informed?
3. What is the role of the tobacco industry? To what extent do they target children? What can be done to address advertising and misinformation from the tobacco industry?
4. Do public health professionals and policymakers have adequate knowledge to protect children from the dangers of tobacco in their country? What are current national policies and what more can be done to fully implement those policies?
5. What are the pros and cons of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS; vaping) (eg as an aid to stop smoking; as an addictive alternative to smoking among young people)?
We look forward to hear your views.
For more information on this global conversation, see: https://www.hifa.org/news/hifa-launches-deepdive-discussion-tobacco-27-f...
Best wishes, Neil
CHIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare
Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders
together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare
information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four
languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA
is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based
nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email:
neil@hifa.org <mailto:neil@hifa.org>
