Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
Faculty of Education and Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
Front Public Health. 2024 Sep 19;12:1358834. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1358834. eCollection 2024.
The tobacco industry (TI), driven by profit motives, consistently conceals health risks through deceptive strategies, notably in countries like India. These tactics create vulnerabilities that hinder effective tobacco control measures and enable the TI to exploit legal gaps. Understanding these TI strategies is essential for policymakers to take appropriate preventive and corrective measures in order to limit tobacco industry interference (TII) in policy-making. The study aims at understanding the trend of TII in India between 2019 and 2023.
The secondary data from the Global Tobacco Industry Interference report, consisting of seven major domains of the TII index, viz. policy participation, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, industry benefits, unnecessary interaction, transparency, conflict of interest, and preventive measures, were retrieved. A composite score was obtained after adding scores of different domains, for each year.
The findings of the study demonstrated an initial improvement in India's implementation of WHO FCTC Article 5.3, as evidenced by a decreasing score between 2019 and 2021. However, this trend halted in 2023, with data showing a slight increase in the score. When compared with other Asian countries, India shows marginal improvement in score than Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea. Some of the countries in the region, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Brunei, China, and Vietnam experienced a decline in TII.
There has been a rise in CSR activities, forms of unnecessary interactions of TII with policymakers, and participation in policy development; however, improvements are observed in providing benefits to the TI, conflict of interest, and preventive measures. In order to fortify the regulatory framework, it is imperative to create awareness among stakeholders on conflict of interest, denormalize corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives by the TI, provision of a watchdog for TII in the country and "whole of government" approach in implementation of FCTC Article 5.3.
受利润动机驱动，烟草业（TI）一贯通过欺骗性策略隐瞒健康风险，特别是在印度等国家。这些策略制造了漏洞，阻碍了有效的烟草控制措施，并使 TI 能够利用法律漏洞。了解这些 TI 策略对于政策制定者采取适当的预防和纠正措施以限制 TI 对政策制定的干扰至关重要。本研究旨在了解 2019 年至 2023 年期间印度 TI 的趋势。
从全球烟草业干扰报告的二手数据中，检索了 TI 指数的七个主要领域，即政策参与、企业社会责任（CSR）活动、行业利益、不必要的互动、透明度、利益冲突和预防措施。每年为不同领域的分数相加后获得综合分数。
研究结果表明，印度实施世卫组织《烟草控制框架公约》第 5.3 条的情况有所改善，2019 年至 2021 年的得分下降证明了这一点。然而，这一趋势在 2023 年停止，数据显示得分略有上升。与其他亚洲国家相比，印度在得分方面的改善微乎其微，仅优于柬埔寨、中国、印度尼西亚、老挝人民民主共和国、马来西亚、缅甸、尼泊尔、菲律宾、泰国和韩国。该地区的一些国家，包括印度、巴基斯坦、孟加拉国、斯里兰卡、缅甸、文莱、中国和越南，TI 的干扰有所减少。
TI 与政策制定者的 CSR 活动、不必要的互动形式以及政策制定参与有所增加；然而，在为 TI 提供利益、利益冲突和预防措施方面有所改善。为了加强监管框架，必须提高利益相关者对利益冲突的认识，使 TI 的企业社会责任（CSR）倡议正常化，在国家内为 TI 干扰提供监督，并在实施《烟草控制框架公约》第 5.3 条方面采取“全政府”方法。
