Whether in the doctor’s office, the dentist’s chair, at the bedside, or over the pharmacy counter, health professionals have a unique opportunity to counsel individuals about why and how to stop smoking. Even brief advice from a health professional can have a significant impact on smoking cessation success. However, health professionals who smoke are less likely to help their patients quit smoking, and their advice has diminished credibility.

Health-professional smoking prevalence varies widely around the world, reflecting socio-demographic patterns of tobacco use. In the early stages of the typical tobacco epidemic, smoking rates increase earlier among higher-status individuals and social trendsetters, such as health professionals, than among the general population. In later stages of the epidemic, health professionals—direct observers of the terrible health consequences of long-term smoking—are usually among the first to quit smoking and begin working to control tobacco. Unfortunately, student health professionals rarely receive smoking cessation counseling or formal training in the treatment of nicotine dependence.

Keeping hospitals smoke-free is crucial to reducing smoking rates among health workers and eliminating the exposure of patients and staff to secondhand smoke. By quitting their own addiction, becoming proficient at smoking cessation counseling, and engaging in social and political action against tobacco, health professionals can minimize and prevent tobacco’s terrible toll of death and disability.

Albania (2005): 65 percent of male medical students smoke cigarettes.

Spain (2006): Smoking among nurses measured at 33 percent, higher than in the general population.

Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies
Protect people from tobacco smoke
Offer help to quit tobacco use
Warn about the dangers of tobacco
Enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship
Raise taxes on tobacco

Building on the first-ever global public health treaty - the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) - the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2008 issued a comprehensive country-level report on the global tobacco epidemic. This report provides data from 179 countries covering 99% of the world’s population and sets baselines for implementation and enforcement of the six evidence-based and cost-effective policies of the WHO MPOWER strategy. Currently only 5% of the world’s population is fully protected by any one of the MPOWER interventions and no country implements and enforces all of them. By taking action to implement MPOWER, the leaders of governments and civil society can create the necessary environment to protect children from tobacco, help people quit tobacco use and save millions of lives a year.

The final version of the online Tobacco Atlas will have information on MPOWER steps related to the issues portrayed on each map.