WHO Report on Secondhand Smoke

In 2005, the Institute for Global Tobacco Control and the World Health Organization (WHO) jointly hosted an international meeting focusing on policies to protect the public against exposures to secondhand smoke (SHS). The meeting brought together recognized international experts in SHS science and policy to outline actions that need to be taken in countries, as a basis for developing national initiatives for SHS control. The meeting aimed to build policy frameworks for high- and low-resource environments, with special emphasis on protecting vulnerable groups such as women and children.

Meeting Objectives

• Highlight, share and document successful national case studies in clean indoor air legislation and enforcement that are representative of a range of national resource and political realities
• Identify generalizable lessons for clean indoor air policy efforts from both successful and unsuccessful national case studies
• Specify capacity-building and training needs
• Recognize minimum policy actions for any country, regardless of the economic and political conditions 
• Compile policy recommendations for clean indoor air based on a number of resources
• Develop training materials to help in the development of stronger clean indoor air measures
• Produce and widely disseminate a report with the meeting’s conclusions and policy recommendations

General policy recommendations to guide international SHS policy efforts are being developed and will be published in a report by WHO in fall 2006.

WHO Press Release