WHO Global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000–2025

November 18, 2021

World Health Organisation (WHO) published the 4^th edition of Global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000-2025.

As per the report, South-East Asia Region achieved the fastest rate of decline in use of tobacco. Average prevalence of smoking among men decreased to 25% in 2020, as against 50% in 2000.
In South-East Region, tobacco smoking among women decreased from 8.9% in 2000 to 1.6% in the year 2020.
India and Nepal are the countries, which is likely to achieve 30% relative reduction in tobacco use in order to meet Global NCD action target plan by 2025.
WHO report highlights that, if tobacco control efforts continues with the current level, smoking rates in this region can reach as low as 11% in 2025. It will be the second lowest Regional average rate after Africa, that is 7.5% in 2025.
The South-East Asia Region has highest rates of tobacco use, that is 29 percent of the population. It accounts for 432 million users.
This region is also the home to 266 million smokeless tobacco users out of 355 million across the globe.

This progress was the result of effective implementation of FCTC and MPOWER package of WHO as well as a set of six cost-effective & high impact measures in order to help countries in reducing the demand and supply of tobacco.
Tobacco use is one among the key risk factors of noncommunicable diseases and effective tobacco control is significant to prevent and control NCDs. It is a flagship priority of this region since 2014.