Tobacco use by youth: a surveillance report from the Global Youth Survey project

The Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) project was developed by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to track tobacco use among youth in countries across the world, using a common methodology and core questionnaire. The GYTS is school based and employs a two stage sample design to produce representative data on smoking among students aged 13-15 years. The first stage consists of a probabilistic selection of schools. All students in the selected classes are eligible for the survey. In 1999, the GYTS was conducted in 13 countries and is currently in progress in over 30 countries. This report describes data from 12 countries: Barbados, China, Costa Rica, Fiji, Jordan, Poland and the Russian Federation (Moscow), South Africa, Sri Lanka, Ukraine (Kiev), Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The findings show that tobacco use in the surveyed age group ranged from a high of 33 percent to a low of 10 percent. While the majority of current smokers wanted to stop smoking, very few were able to attend a cessation programme. In most countries the majority of young people reported seeing advertisements for cigarettes in media outlets, but anti-tobacco advertising was rare. The majority of young people being taught in school about the dangers of smoking. Environmental tobacco smoke exposure was very high in all countries. These results show that the GYTS surveillance system is enhancing the capacity of countries to design, implement, and evaluate tobacco prevention and control programmes. (AU)

Policies for decentralization and development of health education

How the policy of action and professional standards have influenced the development and decentralization of health education is discussed. It is concluded that a review of polices both of developing as well as of developed countries could help to put some observations into a perspective that is closer to the Brazilian reality.