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According to Indonesia’s latest Global Adult Tobacco Survey, 63% of Indonesia’s 70.2 million smokers had plans to quit or were considering quitting. Despite this strong motivation, existing smoking cessation services in the country fail to effectively support these people.
According to the same report, only 38.9% of smokers who visited health facilities received advice to quit smoking, highlighting a critical gap that urgently needs to be addressed, according to the same report. WHO[1].
The Burden of Smoking in Indonesia
Among Indonesian adults (aged 15 years and older), 34.5% use tobacco, including nearly two-thirds of men (65.5%), one of the highest prevalence rates in the world. There is a worrying increase in the prevalence of smoking among women, but also a steady increase in the prevalence of smoking among minors aged 10 to 18 years. Nearly 300,000 Indonesians die every year from tobacco use, and 50,000 of those deaths are caused by secondhand smoke.
Indonesia is one of the few countries in the world that has not ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control due to strong lobbying by the tobacco industry. Tobacco product advertising is still widespread and related regulations or smoking bans remain insufficient to protect Indonesians and limit access to tobacco products, particularly among children and adolescents.
The need to provide smoking cessation services
In response to these challenges, the Indonesian Ministry of Health, together with WHO, organized a national planning meeting on smoking cessation. The main objectives were to raise awareness of the importance of smoking cessation support, identify challenges and develop key recommendations for a national action plan to improve these services across Indonesia. 45 representatives from various ministries and authorities as well as members of civil society organizations and academia took part in the meeting.
Dr. Dongbo Fu, a smoking cessation physician at WHO headquarters in Geneva, presented WHO recommendations and best practices from around the world. He emphasized the need for a comprehensive system of incentives and treatments for smoking cessation that integrates population-level approaches, intensive individual interventions and the use of medicines on the WHO Essentials Medicines Reference List. All participants agreed to improve access to smoking cessation services by training health professionals so that they can provide smoking cessation advice to all patients throughout the treatment course. They also suggested using digital technology to develop mobile smoking cessation applications so that more people have access to smoking cessation help.
However, a treatment policy through the management of smoking cessation is only one of the axes of a strategy to reduce tobacco consumption, which, to be effective, must be comprehensive. Particularly with regard to preventing people from starting to smoke, a smoking cessation policy is difficult to implement, even independently of the health system, if no other protective provisions exist.
Very tentative progress in the fight against smoking
Recently, Indonesia has made some progress in introducing tobacco control measures. 456 cities and districts, accounting for about 86% of all cities and districts in Indonesia, have adopted the establishment of tobacco-free spaces. However, the effective implementation of these regulations still leaves much to be desired. One of the main obstacles is the lack of measurable data and monitoring tools that would ensure the effective implementation of these policies[2].
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, an alarming number of adults are exposed to secondhand smoke: 74% were exposed in restaurants, 51% in public buildings or offices, 45% in home workplaces, and 41% on public transportation. Setting up tobacco-free rooms is a particularly cost-effective measure that not only protects individuals from passive smoking, but also helps to change social norms around smoking and encourage smokers to quit.
Last December, the Indonesian Ministry of Health called for stricter anti-smoking measures to curb tobacco consumption. He wants to increase taxes on tobacco and e-cigarette products and limit advertising for these products; He particularly denounced the freedom that tobacco manufacturers enjoy at this level.
Keywords: Indonesia, smoking cessation, smoking cessation assistance, smoking, tobacco-free spaces, tobacco control
©Tobacco Free Generation
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[1] Press release “Breaking free: Improving tobacco cessation services to help Indonesians quit smoking,” WHO published January 3, 2024, accessed January 4, 2024
[2] Press release, Indonesia launches innovative smoke-free area dashboard to protect public health, WHO published on July 18, 2023, accessed on January 4, 2024
National Committee Against Smoking |
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