For a healthy start in life, children need smoke-free environments: Progress of the Generation Smoke-Free campaign in Belgium since its launch in 2018

Abstract

Belgium still counts 19.4% smokers among its population (15.4% daily smokers)1, causing 15000 premature deaths in our country alone, every year2. Due to progressive anti-tobacco policy, smoking is now banned in many (indoor) public places. The Belgian Alliance for a Smoke-Free Society proclaimed its dream on ‘World No Tobacco Day’ of 2018: a society where no one suffers from the consequences of smoking and secondhand smoke. To achieve the first smoke-free generation by 2037, a whole package of mutually reinforcing measures (MPOWER3) is needed. The ‘Generation Smoke-Free’ project aims to ensure that children born in 2019 are protected from tobacco smoke at every stage of their lives and never start to smoke later in life, so that when they come of age in 2037, these children can claim, ‘I belong to the first smoke-free generation’