The WHO ‘No Tobacco’ Unit (TFI) of the Health Promotion Department is pleased to announce the launch of two online courses on tobacco product regulation on OpenWHO. Tobacco Product Regulation in simple terms, is what goes into the product and what comes out during use, which in technical terms are referred to as the contents (in) and emissions (out) of tobacco products.
Tobacco products kill half of its users, so regulation of these products is of critical importance to reduce the demand for tobacco and protect public health, especially young people.
The online courses provide practical guidance on tobacco product regulation and will be useful to a wide range of audiences, including policymakers, regulators, health authorities, tobacco control advocates, researchers and anyone interested in tobacco product regulation. Further, the courses provide clear guidance on tobacco product regulation in line with Articles 9 and 10 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The teaser video, which elegantly introduces the courses, is available for viewing here.
The courses are based on WHO’s tobacco product regulation handbooks, The Basics of Tobacco Product Regulation and Building Laboratory Testing Capacity and further information on the courses is provided below:
- Course 1, on the Basics of Tobacco Product Regulation , is a basic reference document for regulators/health authorities in any country and other interested parties seeking to monitor, evaluate and regulate tobacco products. It is delivered by Dr Ghazi Zaatari, Chair of the WHO Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation and will take approximately 3 hours to complete.
- Course 2, on Building Laboratory Testing Capacity, provides practical, stepwise approaches to implementing tobacco testing and comprehensible information on how to test tobacco products, what products to test, and how to use testing data in a meaningful way to support regulation. It also provides a step-by-step guide to developing a testing laboratory, using an existing internal laboratory, contracting an external laboratory, and making use of the available support mechanisms both within WHO and externally. The course is delivered by Dr Nuan Ping Cheah, Chair of the WHO Tobacco Laboratory Network and will take approximately 2 hours to complete.
Both courses are a call to countries to prioritize and commit resources to strengthen tobacco regulation capacity. Failure to regulate tobacco products represents a missed opportunity, as tobacco product regulation is a valuable tool that complements other tried and tested tobacco control interventions, as part of a comprehensive tobacco control programme.
A certificate of achievement is issued for each course to those who have completed the materials and earned at least 80% of the maximum number of points from all graded assignments.
We hope you will find these resources useful. Further guidance is available across the three levels of WHO. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you require further information, technical advice or have questions.