December 15, 2016.
According to an unprecedented study conducted by a team of researchers from the cancer research center at Georgetown University (United States), the fight against tobacco carried out across the world has saved 22 million lives in seven years.
22 million lives saved worldwide
It has been a few years now that public policies have been put in place around the world to encourage smokers to quit. Measures that would have borne fruit. This is in any case what reveals a study published in the journal Tobacco Control and revealed by the Figaro. According to this work, 53 million people have decided to quit smoking between 2008 and 2014.
To conduct their study, American researchers studied the smoking status of 88 countries. They were thus able to observe that the various measures put in place by the States had made it possible to save nearly 22 million lives. ” Our results show the enormous possibilities of saving millions of lives by putting in place control policies that have proven to be effective. », Said Professor David Levy who participated in the work.
The most effective measures
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends different avenues to reduce tobacco consumption around the world: put in place prevention policies, protect the population against tobacco smoke, by banning tobacco in public spaces, for example, offer help to those who want to quit, warn against the dangers of tobacco for health, ban advertising or increase taxes.
Among these different avenues, the researchers found that the most effective was increasing taxes. The countries that have practiced price increases have caused 17 million people to quit smoking and have thus been able to save the lives of 7 million people. Protecting the population from tobacco smoke has saved the lives of 5.4 million people.
You may also like: Smoking: tips for quitting!
