WHO: Number of men smoking is starting to decline

The World Health Organization (WHO) has just released a new report on the state of tobacco use globally and the good news is that for the first time we see a decrease in tobacco use among men. According to WHO, this initial achievement is thanks to the awareness of the people that has been gradually raised through awareness raising programs of the governments of the countries.

According to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, this is an important highlight in the fight against tobacco because up to now, the recorded data has only shown a steady increase in the number of smokers , not to mention standing still. Things have gradually improved since the early 2000s when the number of smokers was about 1 billion 397 million people, down to 1 billion 337 million people in 2018, which means that in nearly 20 years, there have been 60 million fewer smokers (it is not clear whether this decline is due to... deaths during that period, this is not clearly stated in the report).

Going into details, in fact, most of this reduction is due to the number of women quitting smoking , from 346 million in 2000 to 244 million in 2018. This is a very impressive number for women while the number of men "taking up a cigarette" has increased from 1.50 billion in 2000 to 1.93 billion in 2018, accounting for a total of 82% of the world's smokers.

However, according to WHO calculations, the number of male smokers will decrease by about 1 million people in 2020, and this trend of decreasing by about 1 million people per year will continue until 2025. According to the calculation method based on WHO recommendations, in 2020 the total number of smokers will decrease by about 10 million people (both men and women) compared to 2018, and by 2025 it will decrease by 27 million people. They also said that up to 60% of the countries that are members of the WHO have reported a steady decrease in the number of smokers since 2010.

Although the above predictions are encouraging, the world has not yet achieved the global target of reducing tobacco use by 30% by 2025. Experts say that if current measures continue, the reduction by 2025 will only be 23%. So there is still a lot to do, 30 is not Tet yet.

There are a few key points in this report for your reference:

• In 2018, approximately 43 million children aged 13-15 used tobacco (including 14 million females and 29 million males).
• The total number of female smokers in 2018 was 244 million, and it is estimated that by 2025, about 32 million women will have quit, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. In fact, women in developed countries have little motivation to quit.
• Currently, Southeast Asia is the region with the highest tobacco use, with an average of 45% of the population over 15 years old in this region smoking, but this number is expected to decrease very rapidly and by 2025 the number of smokers MAY be at 25%.

Source: Tinhte