Public support in Paraguay for tobacco control policies

Introduction: In Paraguay, tobacco smoking's negative impact demands the adoption of all available measures to reduce that impact. The presence or not of public support could potentially influence the adoption these measures. Objective: To determine the presence of public support to tobacco control policies. Methodology: The present was a cross-sectional descriptive study that used an online survey to assess public support to 13 tobacco control policies using a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5 (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree). Results: There were 502 participants, 67.73% of which were women, 87.65% had completed studies at a tertiary level, and 63,75% were non-smokers. Measures that the most support were banning smoking from public transport (98,01%) and from public buildings (93,63%), banning tobacco sales to people under the age of 18 (96,81%), and issuing a fine to those who do it (96,22%), and raising tobacco taxes either to support for the health care expenditure attributable to smoking (94,02%) or to reduce the prevalence of smoking (90,64%). Measures that received the least support were banning tobacco advertisement in points of sale (56,97%) and banning tobacco display on points of sale (51%). Conclusion: All 13 tobacco control policies assessed in the present study received the majority of support from all participants. We recommend the adoption and enforcement of these measures.