Building Blocks for Tobacco Control

The tobacco epidemic is a global challenge demanding concerted global and national action. Recognizing that globalization is accelerating the epidemic's spread and perceiving the limits of national action to contain a public health problem with transnational dimensions Member States of the World Health Organization negotiated and adopted a unique public health treaty for tobacco control. Today the WHO FCTC contains the blueprint for coordinated global action to address one of the most significant risks to health. The idea for this handbook arose from the awareness that while various official WHO documents called for developing national capacity for tobacco control there was no comprehensive publication for the development of such capacity. Conceived as a 'How to' manual Building Blocks for tobacco Control is intentionally pragmatic addressing 'real world' issues and providing practical advice for setting up viable national tobacco control programmes. The handbook contains three main sections. The introduction presents the evolving definition of 'national capacity' identifies the types of capacities needed for effective tobacco control and outlines the key features of building capacity. Part I provides a descriptive overview of the tobacco epidemic and is further subdivided into four chapters on tobacco as a risk factor with attendant health and economic costs; the global strategies of the tobacco industry; the scientific evidence for effective tobacco control interventions; and the WHO FCTC as a global solution to a health epidemic with prominent politico-legal and sociocultural attributes. Part II focuses on the fundamental capacities necessary to empower countries to take on the tobacco epidemic successfully. These chapters apply the lessons learned from the experiences of countries and offer advice and suggestions to enable Member States to put the theories of tobacco control into practice. Chapters on countering the tobacco industry forming effective partnerships monitoring and evaluating progress and exchanging information and research provide insights to augment tobacco control capacity.