Global tobacco use declined, but the epidemic persisted

The World Health Organisation's (WHO) 2025 report revealed that global tobacco use had declined significantly, with the number of users dropping from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024—a 27% relative decrease since 2010. Despite this progress, one in five adults worldwide still used tobacco, contributing to millions of preventable deaths.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, stated that millions had quit or avoided tobacco use due to strong national control efforts. However, the tobacco industry responded by promoting new nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches, aggressively targeting young people. For the first time, WHO estimated that over 100 million people globally were vaping, including about 86 million adults and 15 million adolescents. Children were found to be nine times more likely than adults to use e-cigarettes.

Women had shown greater progress in quitting tobacco, achieving the 30% reduction target by 2020, while prevalence among men remained higher and was not expected to meet the goal until 2031. Regionally, South-East Asia had seen the steepest decline, while Europe had the highest prevalence, particularly among women. Africa had the lowest prevalence but continued to experience growth in user numbers due to population increase.

WHO urged governments to accelerate implementation of the MPOWER measures and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, strengthen regulations on new nicotine products, increase taxes, ban advertising, and expand cessation services to sustain global progress against the tobacco epidemic.

Source: World Health Organisation