Trends in Level of Implementation of the WHO FCTC Article 5.3 in India

The tobacco industry intends to ensure continuing marketing of tobacco products by influencing and interfering in tobacco control policies. This paper assessed trends of tobacco industry interference (TII), the level of implementation, and the government's response to enforcing Article 5.3 guid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Tobacco use insights Vol. 17; p. 1179173X241271543
Main Authors:	Bassi, Shalini, Chopra, Mansi, Chugh, Aastha, Das, Shivangi, Bhojani, Upendra, Nazar, Gaurang P, Amin, Adhip, Dutta, Jhumki, Lal, Pranay, Gupta, P C, Arora, Monika
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States SAGE Publishing 01-08-2024
Subjects:	article 5.3 tobacco industry interference WHO FCTC India
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	The tobacco industry intends to ensure continuing marketing of tobacco products by influencing and interfering in tobacco control policies. This paper assessed trends of tobacco industry interference (TII), the level of implementation, and the government's response to enforcing Article 5.3 guidelines in India to safeguard tobacco control efforts from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry. We conducted a descriptive comparative analysis of four consecutive India TII Indexes (January 2018-December 2021) based on the seven key 5.3 recommendations and twenty indicators to capture (i) the Level of Industry Participation, (ii) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Activities, (iii) Benefits to the Tobacco Industry, (iv) Forms of Unnecessary Interactions, (v) Transparency, (vi) Conflict of Interest, and (vii) Preventive Measures. The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance's (SEATCA) TII Index was used to undertake this assessment. The comparative analysis showed that the overall score of the India TII Indexes over the years decreased from 72 (2018) to 57 (2021). Improvements were shown over the years in adherence to Article 5.3 for limiting unnecessary interactions with the tobacco industry, avoiding conflicts of interest, and having preventive measures. However, major gaps were observed in restricting industry participation, regulating their so-called CSR, providing benefits to the industry in the form of incentives, exemptions, and maintaining transparency. The study provides the status of implementing Article 5.3 and its guidelines in India. Given the gaps in the existing measures, India needs to comprehensively adopt Article 5.3 guidelinesin all states and union territories adopting whole-of-government approach. There is an urgent need to establish an observatory for periodic compilation of the TII indexes to monitor the tobacco industry and report violations at the national and sub-national levels.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1179-173X 1179-173X
DOI:	10.1177/1179173X241271543