Аnalysis of the consumption of tobacco products in the world and methods of its reduction applied in the EU and in Ukraine within european integration

Abstract

In today's world, the health status of a society has become a real criterion for the level of socio-economic development. Many studies show that premature mortality from non-communicable diseases is usually accompanied by low or no economic growth and leads to macroeconomic problems. Combating tobacco use is one of the goals of sustainable development. The subject of this article is the consumption of tobacco products in the world and ways to reduce it. The purpose is to identify who is a consumer of tobacco products in different countries of the world, what gender, age, and income is a modern consumer, as well as to study the measures to reduce tobacco dependence that take place in the European Union, the experience of their adoption by Ukraine, and to identify the impact of these measures on smoking rates.  Objectives: to investigate who the consumers of tobacco products are in different countries and what proportion of the population they represent, to identify whether there is a real relationship between income and consumption of tobacco products, to study how the portrait of a typical consumer changes with the introduction of innovative smokeless tobacco products, to determine whether legislative and fiscal methods affect the level of consumption of tobacco products. Methods: the historical method and comparative analysis were used to study the rollout of smoking cessation programmes and legislative changes related to this; statistical analysis was used to refute the hypothesis of a link between smoking and income in the country; the logical method was used to determine the factors that determine the level of consumption of tobacco products in different countries; correlation analysis was used to identify the relationship between the growth of excise tax and the reduction of smoking in Ukraine. The following results were obtained:  the hypothesis of a greater propensity to smoke in low- and middle-income countries was not confirmed; the level and manner of tobacco consumption in different countries is influenced by culture; a greater number of smokers live in low- and middle-income countries, as the majority of the world's population lives there; within a particular country, a higher proportion of smokers is observed in the poor compared to the rich (although there are exceptions); the reason for this may be the lifestyle and cultural environment of the poor; higher smoking rates among the poor are a problem because they redistribute their limited budget to addictive goods; changes in legislation have introduced the concept of smokeless tobacco products, which has allowed for various restrictions to be applied to them; it has been proven that there is an inverse relationship between the amount of excise tax and smoking rates in Ukraine, so fiscal measures are working. Conclusions: Governments and socially responsible tobacco corporations now face a new challenge: to eliminate the positive image of smokeless tobacco products in the eyes of children and young people, and to address the fact that these products are the first ones they start smoking with.