Smoking control measures: Addressing health inequalities between Africa and the Developed countries

Smoking, which accounts for a large proportion of preventable deaths in the world, poses significant challenges to the African health care system. Certain deliberate steps need to be taken by the government and public health managers in the running battle to reduce smoking-related diseases and deaths in Africa. The range of smoking control measures found in developed countries is not found in most African countries.

African countries can mitigate the unwholesome trend of deaths and diseases from smoking by adopting and leveraging some of the developed countries proven successful strategies to reduce smoke rates, diseases and deaths. Some of these strategies primarily focus on the implementation of complementary programs on tobacco prevention tailored for well-defined groups such as youths and women, investing more resources on tobacco cessation programs and forging beneficial partnerships with international organizations.

African countries can also learn from some of the weaknesses/failures of the anti-smoking policies in developed countries. Therefore this paper will examine some of the strengths and weaknesses of the anti-smoking policies in selected developed countries and how African countries can build on these strengths and weaknesses to develop a viable anti-smoking strategy. Using the critical social theory, the paper will further analyze the anti-smoking history in Africa and selected developed countries, and identify some of the relationships and structures that continues to produce health inequalities between developed and developing countries as it relates to health and smoking.