Retrospective Policy Analysis of Tobacco Prevention and Control in Ethiopia

Main Article Content

Teshome Tesfaye Habebo
Amirhossein Takian

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The trend of non-communicable diseases is alarmingly increasing and tobacco consumption and exposure to its smoke have been playing the leading role. Thirty-seven Ethiopians deaths per day are attributable to tobacco. Unless appropriately mitigated, this has social, economic and political impacts. Implementation of the appropriate policy is a good remedy; however, the policy process has never been straight forward and always successful. The involvement of different actors makes policy process complex hence agenda setting, policy formulation, implementation, and evaluations have been full of chaos and even may fail at any of these levels. Thus the aim of this review was retrospectively analyzing tobacco-related policies in Ethiopia that are relevant to control tobacco use and mitigate its impacts.


METHODS: Systematically, we searched in pub-med, Scopus, Web of Science and Embase. Additionally, we did hand search on Google scholar and national websites. The terms "tobacco", "cigar", "cigarette", "control", "prevention", "policy" and "Ethiopia" were used. Eleven of 128 records met the inclusion criteria and then included. For data analysis, we applied the health policy analysis framework developed by Walt and Gilson.


RESULT: Lately, Ethiopia enacted and started to implement tobacco control policies and programs, but its implementation is problematic and consumption rate is increasing.


CONCLUSION: Despite the early involvement in tobacco control initiatives and enactment of legal frameworks, Ethiopia's journey and current stand to prevent and control the devastating consequences of tobacco is very limited and unsatisfactory. Therefore, we strongly call for further action, strong involvement of private sector and non-governmental organizations.

Article Details

Section
Review
Author Biographies

Teshome Tesfaye Habebo, Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Tehran University of Medical Sciences, International Campus (TUMS-IC), Tehran, Iran

department of health management and economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran

Kembata Tembaro Zone Health Department, SNNPRS, Ethiopia

Amirhossein Takian, Tehran University of Medical Sciences

department of health management and economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran

department of global health & public policy, school of public health, Tehran University of medical sciences, Tehran-Iran.

Health Equity Research center (HERC), Tehran University of medical sciences, Tehran-Iran