WHO Reveals Progress in Increasing Tobacco Warnings

There was a time when smoking cigarettes was much more ubiquitous than it is today. While tobacco use hasn’t gone the way of the dodo — and seems to be having something of a pop culture revival — a recent report from the World Health Organization details the progress national governments have made around the world in getting people to smoke less.

The report details the ways in which different governments have made progress on the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which encompasses everything from education about the risks of tobacco use to regulating the sales and advertising of tobacco products. That framework dates back to 2003; the current WHO report “focuses on the W measure: warn about the dangers of tobacco” and explores the effectiveness of measures that have gone into effect since 2008.

“Today, 6.1 billion people — over 75% of the global population — are protected by at least one intervention from MPOWER, the WHO package of measures that supports implementation of the WHO FCTC,” the WHO’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote in his introduction to the report. He went on to note that in 2008, 44 countries had “implementing at least one MPOWER measure at the highest level of achievement;” that number has grown to 155 as of 2024.

As befitting its focus on health warnings, the WTO report points to signs of progress there as well, showing that the number of countries requiring “graphic health warnings” on tobacco packaging has risen to 110.

Smithsonian and Other Cultural Institutions Under Fire For Taking Tobacco Money

As recently as last year, many renowned museums were still accepting tobacco donations.

That isn’t to say that the report is a victory lap; far from it. It includes the detail that two billion people worldwide live in countries that have not taken any of the six MPOWER steps; the report also reveals that COVID-19 almost certainly led to some countries slowing down the adoption of the agency’s recommendations. The WHO currently lists 67 countries as being “in the best-practice group” — an impressive number, but also one that’s down substantially from a peak of 81 countries in 2016.