Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s Anti Tobacco Campaign Takes to the Railways

By 121 News

Chandigarh 27^th April:- The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), with technical support from global health experts Vital Strategies, today launched a powerful outdoor campaign to raise awareness of the harms of smokeless tobacco. Images and messages from the recently-launched Tears You Apart anti-tobacco campaign will feature on the exterior of trains on some of India's busiest major railway routes across eight states from today until September 2016. The railway ads will potentially be seen by millions of low and middle income Indians who are more likely to use smokeless tobacco across urban and rural areas. This campaign is one of the most geographically extensive health promotion campaigns to utilize the world's most heavily used railway network.

 The railway ads are part of a powerful, multi-channel campaign designed to warn people about the health, social and economic harms of smokeless tobacco, which is used by tens of millions of Indians every day. The Tears You Apart campaign features a Public Service Announcement (PSA) filmed in B. Barooah Cancer Institute in Guwahati, Assam and at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, Maharashtra, which shows real victims suffering from horrific cancers and disfigurements as a result of their chewing addiction. It also includes the victims' relatives, who describe how tobacco-related disease has destroyed careers and family life, and added to their financial burdens. The railway ads could reach people who had not previously seen the campaign on TV.

According to C.K. Mishra, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India said that the Government is committed to ensuring healthcare and social safety for all Indians. Warning people about the dangers of tobacco is a key part of our strategy, using mass media campaigns, Film Rule, and all other methods of Behaviour Change Communication. Tears You Apart shows that tobacco-related suffering isn't limited to disease and disability among patients; their loved ones also share immense health, emotional and financial pains and hardships. It was important for us to highlight this reality in this campaign.

José Luis Castro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vital Strategies, commented that we congratulate the Government of India on this campaign and are delighted that it will reach so many Indians in the course of their daily lives as they travel on the railway or see the trains go past. India is facing an increasing burden of non-communicable disease for which tobacco use is a leading risk factor and an economic burden from tobacco-related disease of more than 1.4 trillion rupees every year. He added that smokeless tobacco plays a major role in that burden of harm. This powerful, emotive campaign empowers victims and their families to show how smokeless tobacco tears lives apart. We hope India's millions of smokeless users will respond to the real faces of tobacco in this campaign and in India's new graphic pack warnings, and decide to quit.

Research has shown that mass media campaigns and graphic health warnings on tobacco packs are one of the most effective means to prompt people to stop smoking. They are one of the World Health Organization's M-P-O-W-E-R (W=Warn) strategies to reduce tobacco consumption. M-P-O-W-E-R strategies are endorsed and promoted bythe Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, of which Vital Strategies is a principal partner.