Tobacco and health in the Russian Federation

Abstract

The prevalence of smoking in the Russian Federation is one of the highest among the countries of the European Region of the World Health Organization. Some two thirds of adult men and one quarter of adult women are regarded to be current smokers. Smoking prevalence is high and increasing among adolescents with nearly one half of 13-16-year-old boys and nearly two fifths of 13-16-year-old girls reported to smoke at least once a week. Over 40% of deaths among men aged 35-69 and 7% of deaths among women aged 35-69 are due to cigarette smoking. To counteract the very high rates of smoking and smoking attributable mortality, the Russian Federation has formulated a tobacco action plan for 1997 to 2001. The elements of the plan are: improvement of legislative measures aimed at tobacco control; creation and support of organizational structures implementing the tobacco prevention policy; improvement of hygienic education for children and adolescents, including early tobacco-use prevention; involvement of the mass media in informing and developing negative attitudes towards tobacco smoking within the population; improvement of the system of professional treatment and counselling of smokers wishing to quit the habit; broadening of the volume of research investigations on tobacco and health