Creating a Virtuous Circle for Population Tobacco Control Interventions and Research

The November issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research includes five papers describing smoke-free research originating from Lower and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

Two of the studies modeled the impact of tobacco control measures. Alcaraz and colleagues1 estimated the impact of implementing large pictorial health warnings with or without plain packaging on deaths, years of life lost, occurrence of common smoking-related diseases, and health costs in Nigeria. The authors estimated these measures would avert thousands of deaths and health events and create substantial cost savings. Similarly, Tuvdendorj et al. modeled the impacts of three MPOWER2 interventions (tax increases, enhanced mass media campaigns, and smoking cessation support) and schools-based education on smoking prevalence, health, and healthcare costs in Mongolia.3 All the measures were estimated to significantly reduce smoking prevalence, particularly increases in tobacco excise tax.