The Progress of the Global Tobacco Cessation Strategies.

The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing more than 8 million people a year, mainly through noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) (1). World Health Organization (WHO) set nine voluntary global targets for NCDs to be attained by 2025, including a 30% relative reduction in prevalence of current tobacco use by 2025 (2), which requires a strong commitment by governments to strengthen the national health system responses and to take action against the leading risk factors for NCDs including tobacco use, the single most preventable cause of death. Commitment to strengthening full implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is a crucial component of action by governments. Although global smoking prevalence among people aged over 15 years has fallen from 22.7% to 17.5%, tobacco control still faces major challenges (3). First, smoking prevalence needs to be further reduced to achieve the global target for tobacco reduction. There remain over 1.3 billion tobacco users in the world and over 80% of them live in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs) (4), including 308 million smokers in China (5). Second, tobacco industry interference plays a big role in slowing progress in tobacco control. Tobacco industry has been aggressively promoting new and emerging products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products as “safer” or “smoke-free” alternatives to conventional cigarettes to undermine the implementation of the WHO FCTC globally (3). Finally, lack of government investment and technical resources is common in most countries. To address these challenges, it is critical to improve support for tobacco cessation, advocate for the prioritization of tobacco control on political agendas, implement sustained investment in tobacco control, and address tobacco industry interference.