Ireland was placed at number 1 along with the UK and France in a recent Tobacco Control Scale ranking report which was presented the 2nd December 2022 at a WHO Symposium on Tobacco Control in Barcelona by Smoke Free Partnership. Martina Blake the HSE Tobacco Lead in HSE Health and Wellbeing, said
“We welcome this ranking and see it as endorsement of all the work we are doing together across the health service and with our many allies across government, civil society groups, the public and our partners under the Tobacco Free Ireland programme. At the same time, recent Healthy Ireland Survey 2022 results show smoking prevalence is stalled at 18%. Furthermore, our State of Tobacco Control Report launched earlier this year we found that inequalities in smoking across socioeconomic groups is widening and also pointed to a need for us to take a more gender responsive to address the trends in smoking for men and women. There is no room for complacency and we need to double-down on our efforts to build a Tobacco Free Ireland. This year and last has seen significant upscaling of Stop Smoking Services through Sláintecare Healthy Communities and through the ongoing implementation of Enhanced Community Care Hubs, we now are able to offer nicotine replacement therapy free to anyone in our service but we need to continue to focus on the various inequalities we see in the smoking population.”
The scale is based on six policies described by the World Bank, which are used to assess the level of implementation of tobacco control policies in each country. The scores can go up to 100 points, and they are determined thanks to a survey which was circulated at national level and benefited from the contribution of national organisations and international instruments. This year’s edition of the Tobacco Control Scale shows the evolution of tobacco control policies since the last 2019 edition and shows that 17 countries still scored less than 50 points consequently urgent actions are needed. Ireland and UK are the countries with the highest score (both 82 out of 100 points), together with France which comes third with 71 points. These countries are doing very well in the field of tobacco control: for example, Ireland has the highest prices of cigarettes in Europe (€15,40 for a pack of Marlboro in 2022).
Full Tobacco Control report here –
https://www.tobaccocontrolscale.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/TCS-Report-2021-Interactive-V4.pdf
Full State of Tobacco Control in Ireland report here –
https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/tobaccocontrol/news/state-of-tobacco-control-report-2022.pdf
