Vardavas Constantine I, Kafatos Anthony G
Preventive Medicine and Nutrition Clinic, Department of Social Medicine Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete, Greece.
Eur J Public Health. 2007 Apr;17(2):211-3. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckl094. Epub 2006 Oct 25.
Smoking is one of the largest public heath problems and a cause of major concern not only among European members such as Greece but also worldwide. Greece over the past years has been suffering from a smoking epidemic with dramatic consequences on the economy and the cost of health services. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to describe the extent of tobacco usage, the methods used to control tobacco consumption, and the main reasons of anti-tobacco legislation failure over the past decades in Greece.
Data were collected from the international PubMed database and from the Greek database, Iatrotek, during January 2006 and the tobacco legislation was discussed with other counterparts in Greece and was rechecked with the Greek ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
Currently Greece has the highest smoking prevalence not only among members of the European Union but also among all members of the OECD. Recent epidemiological studies estimate that 40% of the adult population are daily smokers, with one in two adolescents in certain areas also current smokers. Although anti-smoking policies do exist, and have been enforced over the years, many factors have contributed to their failure with a pro-tobacco culture and an increasing number of adolescent smokers exacerbating the problem.
It is obvious that the strict enforcement of a nationwide anti-tobacco policy must be a priority on the national health agenda, if we are to ever effectively combat the high prevalence of smoking in Greece.
吸烟是最大的公共卫生问题之一，不仅在希腊等欧洲国家，而且在全球范围内都是主要关切的问题。过去几年，希腊一直遭受吸烟泛滥之苦，对经济和卫生服务成本造成了巨大影响。因此，本研究的目的是描述过去几十年希腊烟草使用的程度、控制烟草消费的方法以及反烟草立法失败的主要原因。
2006年1月从国际PubMed数据库和希腊Iatrotek数据库收集数据，并与希腊其他同行讨论烟草立法情况，之后与希腊卫生和社会福利部再次核对。
目前，希腊不仅在欧盟成员国中吸烟率最高，在经济合作与发展组织（OECD）所有成员国中也是如此。最近的流行病学研究估计，40%的成年人口为每日吸烟者，某些地区每两名青少年中就有一人吸烟。尽管存在反吸烟政策，且多年来一直在实施，但许多因素导致了这些政策的失败，亲烟草文化和青少年吸烟者数量的增加使问题更加严重。
显然，如果我们要有效应对希腊吸烟率高的问题，在全国范围内严格执行反烟草政策必须成为国家卫生议程的优先事项。
