Estimated and projected prevalence of tobacco smoking in males, Eastern Mediterranean Region, 2000-2025.

Background: Three global reports published by the World Health Organization (WHO) report trends in the prevalence of tobacco smoking from 2000 to 2025 based on data from national surveys.

Aims: The is study aimed to: (i) compare current and projected prevalence rates of tobacco smoking presented in these reports for males ≥ 15 years in countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region; and (ii) assess changes in the prevalence rates in the context of changes in tobacco monitoring and control policies in these countries.

Methods: Regional and country-level data on tobacco smoking were extracted from the trend reports. Percentage point differences between the estimated prevalence of tobacco smoking in 2010 and the projected prevalence in 2025 were calculated for countries with available data. Data on implementation of national surveys and policies on tobacco use were obtained from relevant WHO reports.

Results: In the latest trend report (2019), the prevalence of male current tobacco smoking is projected to decrease by less than 2 percentage points in the Region (from 33.1% in 2010 to 31.2% in 2025). The projections for male tobacco smoking for 2025 in the 2019 report are more encouraging than in the 2015 report in seven of the eight countries of the Region. For five of these seven countries, implementation of tobacco monitoring and tobacco control policies improved over the same period.

Conclusions: Countries of the Region need to conduct additional national tobacco-use surveys to improve the accuracy of prevalence estimates and projections. Such data can help guide policy-makers to implement policies to control tobacco smoking.