Annual Report 2018

Division of Tobacco Policy Research

Fumihiko Wakao, Itsuro Yoshimi, Tomoyasu Hirano, Yuriko Nishikawa

Introduction

 The death toll attributable to tobacco use is a manmade disaster worldwide; however, many countries have successfully shown that such death toll is avoidable with effective tobacco control regulations. Thus, to achieve a global standard for tobacco policies, our missions are research activities and advocacies based on the following four pillars: Monitoring and Evaluation, Development and Research of Practical Programs, Public Education and Information Services, and Promoting Policies and Networking.

 Especially, those activities are important because the Japanese Government has revised the Health Promotion Act strengthening measures for secondhand-smoking exposure prevention, toward the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020.

Routine and Research activities

1. Through government commissioned projects, we collected information about the implementation status of FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) Parties.

2. We continued participatory workshops with elementary school children on tobacco with respect to cancer education, in line with the "Tobacco Free Kids Japan" program. In 2017, we carried out a new test program in Tokyo.

3. We continued a scheme that combined supervision for private companies with permission to use the trademark for the quitline service program.

4. We developed a training program of cessation support for nurses and disseminated the program to several Prefectural Nursing Associations.

5. We provided a series of seminars on smoking cessation, tobacco control and other preventive health services, for health insurance organizations and municipalities.

 Through providing information and planning assistance to various societies, nongovernmental organizations, and prefectural government departments related to tobacco, and so forth, we carried out networking and capacity development.