Tobacco control
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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has made tobacco use prevention a primary health issue. All ASEAN countries except Indonesia have ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the world's first public health treaty on tobacco control. ⋯ Efforts to reduce the current and projected harm caused by tobacco use in the ASEAN countries are urgently needed. ASEAN countries need to expand their national comprehensive tobacco prevention and control programs and enforce those laws already passed. Without this effort little reduction can be expected in the burden of chronic diseases and tobacco-related mortality.
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The public receives mixed messages about the harmfulness of alternative tobacco products to cigarettes, and little is known about what present and potential users of these products actually think about their relative harmfulness. ⋯ Compared with the current scientific consensus, the participants overrated the harmfulness of snus and, as such, our results suggest a potential for changing peoples' perceptions of the relative health risks of various tobacco products. To the extent that health information affects consumption, accurate information on relative risks may lead more people to choose snus over cigarettes.
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Review
Long-term effectiveness of behavioural interventions to prevent smoking among children and youth.
To evaluate the long-term effectiveness of recent behavioural interventions in the prevention of cigarette use among children and youth and to compare the effectiveness of different school-based, community-based and multisectorial intervention strategies. ⋯ The present work identified moderate evidence for the effectiveness of behavioural interventions to prevent smoking. Although evidence for the effectiveness of school-based interventions was inconclusive, evidence for the effectiveness of community-based and multisectorial interventions was somewhat stronger. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of specific intervention components and the cost-effectiveness of interventions analysed in methodologically high-quality studies.
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To examine current tobacco policy in US prisons and explore changes in prison tobacco policies over time. ⋯ Total tobacco bans have often been accompanied by the termination of tobacco cessation programmes. Such actions undermine efforts to promote long-term cessation resulting in a missed public health opportunity.