World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2010, focuses on gender and tobacco, with an emphasis on marketing to women. Make this the day you stop smoking for good!

On May 31st, CDC joins its tobacco control partners to celebrate World No Tobacco Day—an annual awareness day sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1987 to draw worldwide attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes. The theme for this year's World No Tobacco Day is "gender and tobacco, with an emphasis on marketing to women."

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide and is estimated to kill more than 5 million people each year. If current trends continue, by 2030, tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually.

Although women account for only about 20% of the world's 1 billion smokers, female tobacco use is on the rise. Particularly troubling is evidence that tobacco industry advertising increasingly targets girls and women. World No Tobacco Day 2010 recognizes the importance of controlling the epidemic of tobacco use among women. This year's theme emphasizes the importance of understanding gender differences in tobacco use, advertising, and health effects to protect and promote the health of women and girls worldwide.

WHO Recommendations

Although the World No Tobacco Day 2010 campaign focuses on women and girls, it also recognizes the need to protect boys and men. According to WHO, gender-specific tobacco control strategies will help reduce tobacco use and improve the health of all individuals around the world.

Central to WHO-recommended strategies for tobacco control is MPOWER—a set of six effective tobacco control measures proven to reduce tobacco use:

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

All of the MPOWER measures reflect provisions of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the world's first global public health treaty, created to coordinate an international response to the tobacco epidemic.

New CDC Article on Gender and Tobacco Use

In conjunction with World No Tobacco Day 2010, CDC published an article in the May 28th issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) addressing the issue of gender and tobacco use.

The article, "Differences by Sex in Tobacco Use and Awareness of Tobacco Marketing—Bangladesh,Thailand, and Uruguay, 2009," uses data from the 2009 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) to examine gender differences in tobacco use (smoked and smokeless) and awareness of tobacco marketing in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Uruguay.

GATS is a nationally representative household survey conducted among persons age 15 years or older using a standard and consistent core questionnaire, sample design, and data collection and management protocols to ensure comparability across countries. CDC designed GATS to produce national and sub-national estimates on tobacco use, exposure to secondhand smoke, and smoking cessation attempts across countries around the globe.  The survey also helps countries indirectly measure the impact of their tobacco control and prevention initiatives.

MMWR article found that while fewer women smoke tobacco products in Bangladesh and Thailand, smokeless tobacco use among women is greater than or equal to that among men. The article also indicated that awareness of in-store cigarette marketing in the past 30 days among women ranged from about 8% in Thailand to 24% in Uruguay. These results support the need for continued implementation of the MPOWER framework.

Cited from CDC

10 Facts on Gender and Tobacco Use

1) About 200 million women are smokers compared to about 800 million male smokers. Overall, 9% of women smoke compared to 40 percent of men.

2) In about half of 151 countries, as many girls as boys smoke.

3) Girls and boys start using tobacco for different reasons. Girls smoke more likely in the false belief that smoking is a good way to control body weight and low self-esteem is another reason for girls to smoke.

4) Tobacco use kills about 1.5 million women each year.  Of these women, about 75 percent live in low- and middle-income countries. It is estimated that tobacco use could kill 2.5 million women and 5.5 million men.

5) Women are one of the biggest targets of the tobacco industry's advertisement which links tobacco use to concepts of beauty, prestige and freedom.

6) Women are the major consumers of light cigarettes. Marketing strategies mislead women to believe that light means safer. Those who smoke light cigarettes often inhale smoke more deeply and more frequently to get the desired amount of nicotine.

7) Tobacco use harms women in different ways from men. Smoking during pregnancy raises risk of premature delivery, stillbirth and newborn death and may reduce breast milk.  Smoking can also raise the risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer in women in addition to many lung and heart diseases.

8) Second hand smoke kills more women than men.  Second hand smoke kills 430,000 adults each year of whom 64 percent are women.

9) Women and children often lack power to protect their homes, workplaces and the public areas against second hand smoke.

10) Women is an important part of the target of the tobacco control strategy.  More women than men are illiterate and more effort is needed to help them prevent starting tobacco use. (DL)

Sources: WHO