Assessment of 2016 Taiwan tobacco control performance based on WHO MPOWER guidelines

Abstract

Background: Smoking kills more than 27,000 people each year in Taiwan. This study aims to demonstrate the significant progress with Taiwan MPOWER performances and compare achievements with OECD and other Asian countries. Methods: Assessment data from Taiwan's laws and regulations, a comprehensive health surveillance system, and research database and reports, with WHO MPOWER performance rating indicators. Results: The adult smoking rate declined from 21.9% in 2008 to 15.3% in 2016, indicating a 30.3% decline in smoking rate and a decrease in the number of smokers by approximately 810,000 within 8 years. Taiwan has protected over 90% of the population from smoke-free environments by enforcing the law in eliminating second hand smoke in public areas, and promoted the recognition of tobacco hazards to youth especially via campus activities, official websites, Facebook, and YouTube. It's worth noting that Taiwan is the 2nd country to carry out the ordinance of smokefree parks and national parks around the world. Assisting over 110,000 smokers since 2012 in quitting smoking successfully by providing the Second Generation Smoking Cessation Program and other services such as Quitline, cessation classes and cessation counseling. Over 40% of smokers attempt to quit after Taiwan enacted health warning labels on tobacco packs. The Health Promotion Administration has worked with the National Communications Commission (NCC) to establish the guideline that anti-tobacco textual messages are required to add on Radio and TV programs, reminding people of tobacco harming. Conclusions: Taiwan gains five 1st performance (Monitoring, Smoke-free environments, Cessation programmes, Anti-tobacco mass media campaigns, Bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship) while compared to OECD and other Asian countries (New Zealand, Japan, Republic of Korea, Thailand, China, etc.), and ranks among the best with Singapore, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. Continued efforts are needed to raise the health warnings and taxations in the future.