Submission ID 117968
| Issue/Objective | Gender norms are known to influence smoking behaviours, but studies evaluating tobacco control policies frequently overlook these factors by relying on gender-blind methodologies and there is a paucity of data with which to evaluate global tobacco control interventions. This study assesses the integration of gender in tobacco control research since the adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and uses a novel approach to produce an open-access longitudinal gender-disaggregated international cigarette consumption dataset. |
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| Methodology/Approach | We first applied the European Institute for Gender Equality's Gender Impact Assessment (EIGE-GIA) Toolkit to 43 peer-reviewed studies. Eligible tobacco control research studies published after 2005 drew on nationally representative data and were coded against the EIGE-GIA's core criteria of specifying a gendered target group and assessing the gendered impact of policy interventions. Second, we developed a longitudinal dataset of gender-disaggregated cigarette consumption by collecting nationally representative survey data on cigarette smoking intensity, or the average number of cigarettes smoked per day and combined this data with smoking prevalence data from the Global Burden of Disease study and annual aggregate consumption from the International Cigarette Consumption Database. |
| Results | Among the 43 studies analyzed, 40 identified specific target groups and outlined key challenges related to tobacco use and MPOWER policies, meeting the first EIGE-GIA criterion. However, only 16 studies assessed specific tobacco control policies, and only five evaluated the gender-specific impacts of these policies. Many studies failed to meet the second criterion, often relying on binary comparisons that ignore complex gender dynamics. Our structure data search identified nationally representative smoking intensity estimates for 172 countries covering over 97% of the global population, allowing us to generate gender-disaggregated cigarette consumption estimates for 90 countries. International trends in the evolution of gendered cigarette consumption since 1990 will be presented in detail once final analysis is complete. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | Reliance on binary sex-disaggregated data limits our understanding of the effectiveness of tobacco control policy interventions and inadequately addresses gendered smoking behaviours. Researchers and policymakers should use comprehensive frameworks and our open-access gender-disaggregated dataset to guide the assessment of gendered impacts of tobacco control interventions. |
| Presenters and affiliations | Tina Nanyangwe-Moyo York University Mehedi Hasan Rasel York University Laura J Rosa Pereira York University Steven J Hoffman York University Mathieu JP Poirier York University |
