Invited Commentary: The Challenge of Tobacco Control in China

Smoking cessation is the only way to quickly mitigate the burden of disease and the increased risk of death faced by smokers. In this issue of the Journal, He et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2014;179(9):1060-1070) document lower relative risks of overall and cause-specific mortality among former smokers compared with continuing smokers in a cohort in China. For China, an immediate increase in the pace of smoking cessation is essential to avoid a rising burden of smoking-attributable disease in a country with the world's largest number of smokers. These new findings provide nationally relevant evidence of the benefits of cessation. Although China is a party to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the government's implementation of tobacco-control policies as obligated by the treaty has been limited. China needs to be committed to implementing effective measures to promote smoking cessation, a crucial element of both the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and comprehensive programs for tobacco control.