WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2019: Offer help to quit tobacco use

Summary

Progress in global tobacco control has been strong since MPOWER was introduced in 2007 as a tool to help countries implement WHO FCTC demand reduction measures. Five billion people – about 65% of the world’s population – are now covered by at least one MPOWER measure at the highest level of achievement. This number has more than quadrupled since 2007 when only 1 billion people – 15% of the world’s population – were protected by at least one MPOWER measure (not including Monitoring or Mass media campaigns, which are assessed separately).

Since the last WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, two years ago, progress has been steady, with 15 countries that previously had no best-practice measures taking action to reach best-practice level on one or more measures, and a further 21 countries that had at least one measure in place adding at least one more. This means a total of 36 countries introduced one or more MPOWER measures at the highest level of achievement between 2016 and 2018.