The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently released a report to update the global trends in tobacco use from 2000 to 2024 and project the trends until 2030. Globally, the tobacco use prevalence is on a decreasing track but the target to achieve 30% relative reduction from the tobacco use prevalence in 2010 by 2025 will fall through.
The United Nations has developed various sustainable development goals, one of which is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being. Besides, the WHO has targeted to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through multiple strategies, including reducing the global tobacco use prevalence by 30% relative to 2010 (i.e. to 18.3%) by 2025. Current tobacco use is on a declining trend globally, with the prevalence decreasing from 33.1% (1.38 billion people) in 2000 to 19.5% (1.20 billion people) in 2024. The prevalence is projected to fall to 19.2% in 2025, 0.9 percentage point higher than the reduction target (18.3%). Another three years are needed to reach the target level. The prevalence is projected to further fall to 17.4% in 2030. By sex, the reduction target for male tobacco use will not be met, whereas that for female tobacco use was already met a few years ago. Males had much higher tobacco use prevalence than females for all age groups. The prevalence in males was 32.5% in 2024, and is projected to fall slightly to 32.0% in 2025, 3 percentage points higher than the reduction target (29.0%). The reduction target for female smoking was reached in 2020, and the prevalence of current tobacco use in 2024 was 6.6%.
Based on the trends in tobacco use until 2024, 61 countries are likely while 105 countries are unlikely to achieve the reduction target by 2025. Of the countries falling short of the target, 79 are on declining trends, 14 maintain prevalences similar to 2010, and 12 are on increasing trends.
Cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product worldwide. In 2024, 83% of all current tobacco users smoked cigarettes. The global prevalence of current cigarette smoking was 13.8% (847 million people) overall, 23.8% in males and 3.7% in females. In adolescents, the prevalence was 5.1% overall (20.4 million people), 6.8% in boys and 3.3% in girls.
Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use, especially in young people, has been a major public health concern in the recent decade. Over 0.1 billion people worldwide are e-cigarette users, including 86.1 million adults and 14.7 million adolescents. The prevalence of current e-cigarette use was much higher in adolescents (7.2%) than in adults (1.9%). The prevalence was at least nine times higher in adolescents than in adults in some countries.
Despite the declining trend in tobacco use, nearly one in five adults remain addicted to tobacco and e-cigarettes. The WHO calls on governments to step up tobacco control, and fully implement the measures from the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the MPOWER package. To accelerate the reduction in tobacco use, Hong Kong should continuously monitor the effectiveness of the measures introduced with the Tobacco Control Legislation (Amendment) Ordinance 2025, and implement medium- and long-term strategies of tobacco control in Hong Kong.
Source: World Health Organization