World Anti-Tobacco Day

The World Health Organization is joining hands with public health advocates to commemorate World no Tobacco Day, also known as world anti-tobacco day, which is celebrated on May 31 of every year.

Every year, anti-tobacco day aims at raising awareness among people about the health problems brought about by the use of any form of tobacco. It emphasizes the value of quitting and calls on authorities, groups, and people to take action to stop tobacco usage.

This year’s theme is “We need food, not tobacco.” It focuses on encouraging farmers to focus their attention on growing more sustainable crops that improve food security and nutrition and encourages governments to end tobacco growing subsidies.

WHO’s campaign objectives include.

1. Mobilize governments to end subsidies on tobacco growing and use of savings for crop substitution programmes that support farmers to switch and improve food security and nutrition.
2. Raise awareness in tobacco farming communities about the benefits of moving away from tobacco and growing sustainable crops.
3. Support efforts to combat desertification and environmental degradation by decreasing tobacco farming.
4. Expose industry efforts to obstruct sustainable livelihoods work.

Statistics show that smoking causes at least 30% of cancer related deaths and makes up 80 per cent of lung cancer deaths.

Also Read: Alcohol Still Most Abused Substance in Kenya-NACADA Report

According to a national survey on the status of drugs and substance use in Kenya released by NACADA;  

“The distribution of the population with a spontaneous awareness of at least one tobacco product by sex was 87 percent for males and 85 percent for females. Overall spontaneous awareness for the population in the rural and urban areas was 87 percent and 83 percent, respectively. The population in the Northeastern region had the highest spontaneous awareness of at least one tobacco product at 97 percent followed by the Western region (95.6%). The Coast region had the lowest level of spontaneous awareness of at least one tobacco product at 75 percent.”

The statistics further showed that,

“Twenty-one percent of the population aged 36 years and above had the highest prevalence of lifetime use of at least one tobacco product. Males had a higher prevalence of lifetime use of tobacco for all tobacco products compared to females. There was not much variation in the lifetime use of tobacco between those in urban areas and rural areas. The Central region reported the highest prevalence of lifetime use of tobacco at 20 percent while the Northeastern region reported the lowest prevalence of lifetime use of tobacco at 5 percent.”

For the age between 15-24 years.

“The prevalence of lifetime use of tobacco was at 7%. Males had a higher prevalence of lifetime use of tobacco (12.3%) compared to females (3.2%). The results further show that those in the urban areas had a higher prevalence of lifetime use of tobacco (10.8%) compared to those in the rural areas (5.4%).”