BACKGROUND AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES: Keeping the harms of tobacco industry tactics and their products in the spotlight helps set the stage to effectively implement evidence-based policies.
INTERVENTION OR RESPONSE: The Institute for Global Tobacco Control (IGTC) used creative strategies to engage audiences and raise awareness across the globe, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) campaigns, local media coverage and an online tobacco pack database.
RESULTS AND IMPACT: WNTD provides an opportunity to reach a large audience. In 2023, participants from 49 countries completed an online quiz about the harmful effects of tobacco growing while we received videos from 15 countries in 2024 telling the tobacco industry to stop marketing to young people.
IGTC grew its media influence in 2024 through contracts with global communications firms generating 20 media stories in seven countries. A series of articles in the Philippines on youth use of e-cigarettes put IGTC’s work in front of 72 million monthly readers while a state-sponsored website in the Philippines referenced an IGTC study in an article on efforts by health advocates seeking to amend the country’s e-cigarette regulation. An op-ed in Mexico’s El Universal reached an audience of more than 22 million readers.
The Share-a-Pack feature of our tobacco pack database alerts our team to items seen by others. A bidi pack uploaded in 2018 using the face and name of global soccer superstar Lionel Messi led to an examination of the unauthorized use of names, likenesses and the use of global sporting events to promote tobacco products.
CONCLUSIONS: Expanding the audience of our work beyond policymakers to the people they serve builds an additional layer of support for necessary change. These efforts harness the power of the public in tobacco control advocacy.