World No Tobacco Day 2005 focuses on the fundamental role of health professionals in tobacco control in recognition of their unique position and influence in their communities. Health professionals include medical doctors, nurses, dentists, midwives, psychologists and psychiatrists, physicists, pharmacists and other health related professions.

Health professionals reach a high percentage of the population and have the credibility and opportunity to help people change their behavior. They can give advice, guidance and answers to questions related to the consequences of tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke, they can help patients to stop smoking, and they can be leaders in promoting tobacco control policies in their communities, nationally and internationally.

Health Professionals should be the example that a healthy society reflects upon. Many associations and establishments have started -and should continue- to designate their own workplaces as smoke- and tobacco-free. Health

professional students who receive tobacco control training during their educational years become more efficient at preventing and treating tobacco-related illness and are better able to support their patients’ cessation efforts.

At the legislative level, health professionals can use their influence to encourage preventive tobacco control measures to be put in place at community, national and international level. Promotion of ratification and implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is one of the most important activities that health professionals can currently undertake.

More on the role of health professionals in tobacco control

WNTD Brochure

Technical/Background Information

• Smoking in Health professionals
  ( MS Word, 25KB)
• Health Professionals Against Tobacco: Declaration of the Americas
  ( MS Word, 34KB)
• World No Tobacco Day Awards 2005
  (Please note that the deadline for nominations has passed. Winners will be announced on World No Tobacco Day)
  ( MS Word, 38KB)

Press Releases

• 700,000 Health Professionals in the Americas Pledge To Combat Tobacco (May 27, 2005)
• Tobacco Control Convention to Enter Into Force (February 24, 2005)

Graphic Material

Poster 1

Poster 2

Poster 3

Poster 4

Poster 5

Additional Information

World No Tobacco Day 2005 page on the World Health Organization web site.

PAHO Publications on Tobacco and Unhealthy Lifestyles (Includes special promotional offer for WNTD 2005)

This page in Spanish

SDE Homepage -- SDE/RA Homepage -- WHO Tobacco Free Initiative -- Tobacco Control