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China Tobacco Study Shows Urgent Need for Regulation and Education

Note: World Lung Foundation united with The Union North America. From January 2016, the combined organization is known as “Vital Strategies.”

(October 9th, 2015, New York, USA) – World Lung Foundation (WLF) today welcomed the publication in The Lancet of a major study into tobacco use and tobacco-related mortality in China.  

The study, which was conducted in two phases over 15 years and incorporating three-quarters of a million people, reveals that smoking initiation among men is happening at a younger age and that smokers continue to smoke for longer compared with previous generations, increasing their risk of disease and premature death.  

Unless significant advances are made in reducing tobacco use, the study predicts that one in three of all young men in China will eventually die from tobacco use and smoking-related premature death – from conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, stroke and heart disease – will claim two million lives every year by 2030.

Dr Judith Mackay, Senior Advisor, World Lung Foundation and a long-term advocate of tobacco control in China and around the world said: “The Chinese government has recently taken several important actions in tobacco control, such as a major report on smoking by the China Central Party School, the creation of smoke-free areas (Beijing became a smoke-free city on June 1st 2015), bans on several forms of tobacco advertising, State Council and PLA directives, and raising tobacco tax. I believe that this study, showing the extreme magnitude of the tobacco epidemic in China, will strengthen and increase these efforts.” 

“We congratulate Professor Chen, Professor Sir Richard Peto and the team at Oxford University, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and other contributors on this important study. Concern about the tobacco epidemic in China has been growing for some time, but the conclusion that tobacco will kill two million of China’s people every year by 2030 is shocking,” said Mr. José Luis Castro, President and CEO of World Lung Foundation and The Union North America. 

“Of particular concern is that men, on average, are starting to smoke at a younger age and are smoking for longer – so tobacco will cause the premature death of one in three young men. This information brings new urgency to the need to implement and enforce tobacco control measures, promote smoking cessation and specifically target China’s men with educational mass media campaigns that increase awareness about the proven harms of smoking and secondhand smoke.  

“We are delighted to have provided assistance in promoting Smokefree Beijing earlier this year and look forward to supporting future campaigns that will help to avert this study’s shocking predictions on the future toll of needless, tobacco-related death,” he concluded.