The Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health will be one of five
organizations to receive funds from a $125 million global
initiative recently established by Michael R. Bloomberg.
Over the next two years, the partner organizations will
implement and coordinate activities to help stop the global
epidemic of tobacco use. The other partners announced last
week are the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation, the World
Health Organization and the World Lung Foundation.
To support the initiative, the School of Public
Health, which is named in honor of Michael Bloomberg, plans
to expand its tobacco control programs in China. These
programs focus on interventions to reduce tobacco use,
health surveillance, and the communication and evaluation
of tobacco control measures. The school also will draw upon
the tobacco control skill and expertise of its Institute
for Global Tobacco Control,
Center for Communication
Programs and Department of Health, Behavior and
Society.
The Bloomberg School's efforts will be headed by
Jonathan Samet, chair of the Department
of Epidemiology and director of the Institute for
Global Tobacco Control.
"This is an extraordinary and long-needed opportunity
to expand the work we're doing worldwide, particularly in
China, where over 330 million people smoke. Globally,
nearly 5 million people are killed by tobacco each year.
Current trends suggest that number could increase to 10
million over the next 15 years," Samet said.
In addition to China, the $125 million initiative will
develop programs in India, Russia, Indonesia and
Bangladesh. The partners will also create a global
clearinghouse for anti-tobacco ads and support legal
measures and policies to limit smoking and protect
individuals from secondhand smoke.
The four main components of the initiative are the
following:
Refine and optimize tobacco
control programs to help smokers stop and prevent children
from starting.
Support public sector efforts to
pass and enforce key laws and implement effective policies;
in particular, to tax cigarettes, prevent smuggling, change
the image of tobacco and protect workers from exposure to
other people's smoke.
Support advocates' efforts to
educate communities about the harms of tobacco and to
enhance tobacco control activities to help make the world
tobacco-free.
Develop a rigorous system to
monitor the status of global tobacco use.
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