The World No Tobacco Day 2018 focuses on the impact tobacco has on the cardiovascular health of people worldwide. Tobacco use, according to the UN, is an important risk factor for the development of coronary heart disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease.
Cardiovascular diseases, doctors say, kill more people than any other cause of death, and tobacco use and second-hand smoke exposure contribute to approximately 12% of all heart disease deaths. The global tobacco epidemic kills more than seven million people each year. Nearly 80% of the more than one billion smokers worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest.
Every year, on May 31, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and partners mark the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), highlighting the health and other risks associated with tobacco use, and advocating for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption.
The focus of World No Tobacco Day 2018 is: “Tobacco and heart disease.”
The campaign, according to the WHO, will increase awareness on the:
- link between tobacco and heart and other cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including stroke, which combined are the world’s leading causes of death; and
- feasible actions and measures that key audiences, including governments and the public, can take to reduce the risks to heart health posed by tobacco.
World No Tobacco Day 2018 coincides with a range of global initiatives and opportunities aimed at addressing the tobacco epidemic and its impact of public health, particularly in causing the death and suffering of millions of people globally. These actions include the WHO-supported Global Hearts and RESOLVE initiatives, which aim to reduce cardiovascular disease deaths and improve care, and the third United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of NCDs, being held in 2018.
World No Tobacco Day 2018 aims to:
- Highlight the links between the use of tobacco products and heart and other cardiovascular diseases.
- Increase awareness within the broader public of the impact tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke have on cardiovascular health.
- Provide opportunities for the public, governments and others to make commitments to promote heart health by protecting people from use of tobacco products.
- Encourage countries to strengthen implementation of the proven MPOWER tobacco control measures contained in the WHO FCTC.
