New Edition of The Tobacco Atlas Catalogues Catastrophic Toll of Tobacco Worldwide
Monday, March 9, 2009
Contact: Jorge Alday, Public Relations Manager
* Tobacco Projected
to Kill Six Million and Drain $500 Billion from
Global Economy Each Year
*More than 80 Percent of Deaths Will
Occur in Low-and Middle-Income
Countries
(Mumbai, India) – Today World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society published The Tobacco Atlas, Third Edition and released an online version of the document at TobaccoAtlas.org. This comprehensive volume of research and its accompanying website graphically display how tobacco is devastating both global health and economies.
A $500 Billion Hole in Global
Economy
According to The Tobacco
Atlas,
tobacco’s estimated $500 billion drain on the
world economy exceeds the
total combined annual expenditure on health in
all low-and
middle-income countries. The economic
costs come as a result of lost
productivity, misused resources, ineffective
taxation and premature
death:
- Because 25 percent of smokers die and many more become ill during their most productive years, income loss devastates families and communities.
- Cigarettes are the world’s most widely smuggled legal consumer product. In 2006, about 600 billion smuggled cigarettes made it to the market, representing an enormous missed tax opportunity for governments, as well as a missed opportunity to prevent many people from starting to smoke and encourage others to quit. A ten percent increase in cigarette prices reduces demand by up to five percent among adults, with even better results among young smokers.
- Tobacco replaces potential food production on almost 4 million hectares of the world’s agricultural land, equal to all of the world’s orange groves or banana plantations.
- In developing countries, smokers spend great sums of money in proportion to their incomes that could otherwise be spent on food, healthcare and other necessities.
Burden Shift to the World’s
Poorest Countries
The Tobacco Atlas
crystallizes an undeniable trend: the
tobacco industry has shifted its
marketing and sales efforts to countries that
have less effective
public health policies and fewer resources in
place:
- In 2010, tobacco will kill six million people worldwide annually, 72 percent of whom will be in low and middle-income countries.
- Since 1960 global tobacco production has increased 300 percent in low- and middle-resource countries while dropping more than 50 percent in high-resource countries.
- In India and China together, over half a billion men are consuming tobacco.
- In Bangladesh alone, if the average household bought food with the money normally spent on tobacco, more than 10 million people would no longer suffer from malnutrition and 350 children under age five could be saved each day.
“The Tobacco Atlas is crucial to understanding the nature of the most preventable global health epidemic,” said John R. Seffrin, Ph.D. chief executive officer, American Cancer Society. “This single resource can help advocates in every nation get the knowledge they need to combat the scourge of tobacco in their communities and on the worldwide stage. By utilizing the information in The Tobacco Atlas to develop public health strategies to reduce tobacco use and help people stay well, we will save millions of lives. ”
“Common throughout The Tobacco Atlas is vivid evidence that the health burden is shifting from high-income countries to their low and middle-income counterparts,” said Peter Baldini, chief executive officer, World Lung Foundation.” The evidence presented herein and online, however, must do more than clearly articulate the scope and dimensions of the problem. It should be applied actively to strengthen the case for policy change.”
The four authors of the publication bring together an impressive array of credentials and unique experience. Omar Shafey, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist, and an adjunct professor of Global Health at Emory University. Among many publications and studies, he was a coauthor of the second edition of The Tobacco Atlas. Michael Eriksen, Sc.D., is a professor and founding director of the Institute of Public Health at Georgia State University. He has been a Senior Advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health. Hana Ross, Ph.D. is an economist and strategic director of international tobacco control research at the American Cancer Society. She is also deputy director of the International Tobacco Network (ITEN), a network promoting collaboration among economists interested in tobacco control issues. Judith Mackay. M.D., is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of Edinburgh and London, and a special advisor at World Lung Foundation. She is also a senior policy advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) and a director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control.
The new online version of the publication, TobaccoAtlas.org, enables policy makers, public health practitioners, advocates and journalists interact with the data and create customizable charts, graphs and maps.
The Tobacco Atlas and TobaccoAtlas.org were launched at a press conference at the World Conference On Tobacco OR Health in Mumbai, India.
# # #
About The American Cancer
Society
The
American Cancer Society is dedicated to
eliminating cancer as a major
health problem by saving lives, diminishing
suffering, and preventing
cancer through research, education, advocacy,
and service. Founded in
1913, the Society has local offices in 3,400
communities, involving
nearly three million volunteers across the
United States and
internationally. The Society’s international
work focuses on capacity
building of civil society and on collaborating
with other
cancer-related organizations to carry out its
mission across the globe.
For more information about the American Cancer
Society, visit www.cancer.org
international.
About
World Lung Foundation
World
Lung Foundation was established in response to
the global epidemic of
lung disease, which kills 10 million people
each year. The
organization improves global lung health by
improving local capacity to
conduct research, develop public policy and
deliver public health
education. The organization’s areas of
emphasis are tobacco control,
tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, asthma, and child lung
health. For more
information, please visit worldlungfoundation.org
For more information, please contact Jorge Alday, World Lung Foundation at +1 (212) 639 0070 or jalday@worldlungfoundation.org, or Andrew Becker, American Cancer Society at (212) 237-3899 or andrew.becker@cancer.org