Multi-Sectorial Workshops Organized by the Office of Smoking Prevention

Key Contextual Factors

Workshops contributed to:

• Establishment of new partnerships and increase in a number of partners who will further work in tobacco control field.
• Identification of challenges and planning of the next steps for improvement of tobacco control.
• Identification of priority actions.
• Reducing resistance to tobacco control measures and better understanding of their benefits especially from social and economic perspective.  

Key Components/Steps

• Mapping of policy process.
• Mapping decision makers, organizations/institutions that can advocate for tobacco control.
• Organizing roundtables and other public discussions with decision makers, implementers, and other target groups.
• Gaining media attention.

Main Impacts / Added Value

• Even so the main target groups were decision makers and professionals; media coverage of these events lead to better understanding of general population of importance of actions leading to smoke few environments. This is of importance due to strong correlation between social norms and policy implementation.

Lessons Learned

• Multisectoral workshops are important for understanding challenges for adoption of tobacco control measures and for guidelines for facing these challenges.
• There is need for stronger focus on activities aimed at changing wrongly perceived economic benefits of tobacco.
• In addition to international data and evidence on importance of evidence based tobacco control, data from national surveys and research are helpful resources for advocacy to be used at national multisectorial workshops.
• New challenges such as heated tobacco products and emerging waterpipe tobacco use amplify the importance of continuous provision of accurate information on tobacco control best practice to decision makers, general public and health professionals.

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