The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Government banned tobacco promotional advertisement in electronic media in 1998 as a result of our continue advocacy, but advertisement has grown 8 folds in print media and also in billboards. The tobacco companies continue to sponsor sports, concerts and other programs to attract the teenagers. As a result the tobacco consumption has grown from 170 in 1980 to 600 in 2000. To aware the public on tobacco issue and also to communicate the risk effectively RECPHEC has initiated media advocacy.

Methods:

µ Sensitizing the media people on tobacco issues in national and global context. µ Encouraging the journalists to initiate investigative journalism. µ Capacity building media training. µ To form critical masses of journalist committed to tobacco control.

Results: With our advocacy, two media groups - Media Object and Health Journalists Association of Nepal are now committed to anti-tobacco campaign. They have published news in different media on issues related to tobacco' impact. In this context 32 articles are published in different magazines and newspapers and a total of 8 radio and TV programs were aired in 2005. With our advocacy the Ministry of Health started awarding journalists annually for their contribution on anti-tobacco campaign.

The Media Object conducted a base-line survey in four VDCs around Kathmandu with the support of RECPHEC involving 300 families. In addition a total of 7 field studies have been conducted by the University students on different dimensions of Tobacco in association with RECPHEC.

(Detail reports are available on request)