The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the tobacco epidemic in Vietnam will kill 8 million people alive today or 10 percent of the current population. The disparity between the magnitude of the tobacco epidemic and the attention and resources available for its control reflects lack of awareness of the link between tobacco and ill health as well as the strength and dominance of the tobacco industry in Vietnam.Mainstreaming Tobacco Control in Vietnam (MTC project) funded by Rockefeller Foundation, is an effort to strengthen tobacco control in Vietnam through mobilizing greater involvement and participation of key government agencies, UN agencies, NGOs, and donors and through capacity building and skill development of the Tobacco Control Working Group (TCWG) members. PATH Canada is partnering with the Vietnam Public Health Association (VPHA) to implement the project
Project Goal: The overall goal of the program is to strengthen and expand tobacco control in Vietnam through integration of tobacco control into existing programs and through expansion of the number of key organizations and individuals in the North and South of Vietnam actively and effectively involved in tobacco control.
Project objectives:
1. To increase integration of tobacco control into government programs (including mass organizations) and to increase the number of key agencies (international, UN, INGOs, and donors) that include tobacco control as a part of their activities.
2. To improve the capacity of the TCWG members and tobacco control researchers
3. To expand the number of tobacco control intervention and research projects that support tobacco cessation, strong health warnings, smoke-free places, and tobacco tax increase.
4. To expose tobacco industry strategies in the media and gain support for strong tobacco control laws by policy makers as a counter-offensive to the threat of increased tobacco trade, consumption, and promotion.
5. To examine the social costs of tobacco, especially the impact of tobacco on the livelihoods of the poor, as a means to generate public and donor support for tobacco control (This objective had been completed after the first year of project implementation.
This report covers the period from June 1, 2005 to April 30, 2006
Project activities:
Project team has continued to collaborate with VPHA in implementing the project components. The activities were designing toward the extension of tobacco control to other provinces with coordinating role of Provincial Public Health Associations (PPHA). During the period of one year, three new PPHA s have been founded making all together six PPHA (Da Nang, Hai Duong, Thai Binh, Dong Thap, Khanh Hoa, Yen bai). The project team worked closely with VPHA and PPHA to identify the opportunities for tobacco control in PPHA agenda and help them to develop tobacco control program. The TCWG in Hanoi has been continued to meet regularly. The project team keeps close contact with TCWG members and TCWG coordinating group members to identify the issues and opportunities for tobacco control advocacy. The network with media has been maintained and extended. The information on tobacco control was provided to media on regular basis with the help of tobacco control fact sheet. The close contact with South East Asian Tobacco Control Alliance has been maintained to get the support form SEATCA and identify the opportunity for capacity building. The team actively response to the call for grant application of major funding organization such as RITC, Atlantic Philanthropies, UICC… trying identify the resource for tobacco control activities.
Outcomes: - VPHA became the main coordinator of TCWG, working actively with local and international partners to identify the opportunity in tobacco control. It is also very active in supporting PPHA to design tobacco control program. - A comprehensive tobacco control program has been developed by three newly founded PPHA (Dong Thap, Khanh Hoa, Yen Bai) making all together six PPHA having tobacco control program in their agenda.
The program generally include
1) foundation of TCWG;
2) Implementation of smoke free policy at work places (hospitals and/or offices) and public places ;
3) support the partner to implement other TC policies;
4) anti-smoking campaign activities.
- Five meetings of TCWG had been organized in the period under the report. the main contains of these meetings were updating on FCTC implementation of partners; sharing of research finding; Sharing the information on the workshops/ conference on tobacco control attended by the members
- Five new projects had been funded. two were developed by the newly-founded PPHAs, of which, one has been implemented, one is under development.
- The network built with journalists has been strengthened and extended. The information on the issues of tobacco control has been disseminated to media with the help of fact sheet. In total five fact sheets had been developed covering the topics: tax policy; economic cost of smoking; benefit from tax raising; cigarette smuggling prevention; women and tobacco control
- A media surveillance is being continued covering 40 newspapers; From June 2005 to the middle of April 2006, 426 articles covering tobacco control issues and tobacco industry issues have been identified, of them 80 articles (18%) were promoting tobacco industry which were considered as “negative”; 2% was considered as neutral; 50 articles used directly information from fact sheets.
- IEC materials development and printing: o 500 booklets “Guideline for development the club of “women having no smoking relatives”o 500 booklets “Guideline for Elderly Association in the development of smoke free community”o 10,000 “No smoking” stickers5,500 “No smoking” banner
