Health Promotion Forum

 

Commit to quit: empowering tobacco users to quit 

Moderator: Dr Ruediger Krech, Director, Department of Health Promotion, WHO

Speakers

  • Vinayak Prasad, Unit Head, No Tobacco Unit (TFI), Department of Health Promotion, WHO
  • Richard Ahlfeldt, Managing Director, Rooftop
  • Debbie Rogers, Chief Executive Officer, Praekelt.com
  • Hala Boukerdenn, Coordinator, Noncommunicable Diseases, WHO Country Office in Jordan
  • Judith Prochaska, Professor, Stanford University

Organised by No Tobacco Unit, WHO 

The COVID-19 pandemic has made people more aware about the importance of strengthening comprehensive tobacco cessation services in supporting current tobacco users to quit. In response to the requests from WHO Member States, WHO launched a year-long World No Tobacco Day campaign - “Commit to Quit” in 2021, aiming to encourage 100 million tobacco users to quit through advocacy for national tobacco cessation policy change, supporting countries to improve access to comprehensive tobacco cessation services as well as offering a series of digital tobacco cessation tools at the global level. The purpose of this session is to mobilize governments and the global community, including relevant UN agencies, to address some of the challenges identified during this year-long campaign, and to amplify new and existing evidence-based cessation services. The speakers will share the success, experiences, lessons learned of the “Commit to Quit” campaign with the focus on the digital solutions for tobacco cessation, country-level success stories and the implication of two more tobacco cessation medications added on WHO Model List of Essential Medicines.