7.P. Skills building seminar: Using health impact assessment for assessing tobacco control policies
Authors:   Organised by: European Burden of Disease Network, EUPHA-HIA,   Chair persons: Brecht Devleesschauwer (Belgium), Piedad Martin-Olmedo (EUPHA-HIA)
Published: October 2024

Tobacco use is the largest contributor to premature death and preventable disease in Europe. Despite decreasing tobacco use in recent years, the European Commission estimates that the number of smokers in Europe is 26% in the population, and 29% among 15-24 year olds. This persistent public health risk is amenable to policy, but targeted and effective strategies are needed. Health impact assessment (HIA) methods can aid decision-makers in exploring the consequences of policy actions on select outcomes, providing a platform for informed, evidence-based policy design. Routine data collection on risk factors including smoking and tobacco use behaviour is common and available in Europe. Analysing and valorising these data can provide a better picture of vulnerable and target groups for which tobacco use is a persistent problem, or where the attributable disease burden is particularly high. These data can form the basis for robust projections and the application of HIA methods. In addition, a number of policy strategies exist for tobacco control including changes in packaging, taxation, labelling, ingredients, creation of smoke-free environments, and restrictions on advertising. These policies have a common goal in improving tobacco control, but may lead to differential effects across age groups, populations, and different measures of tobacco use. It is thus necessary to use robust tools to understand these effects and better coordinate and plan policy. HIA methods, each with their own strengths and limitations, have been applied successfully to estimate the impact of different tobacco control measures. Novel methodologies that make use of available data, computational power, and provide a low-cost way to explore policy interventions can be an essential tool to policy planning and in particular to tackle the intractable areas of tobacco control. This skills building workshop will present two key approaches, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, that have been applied in HIA studies on tobacco control - i.e., a static approach based on the calculation of potential impact fraction, and a dynamic approach based on microsimulation models. Furthermore, the workshop will demonstrate, using two real-life examples, how policy measures can be translated into effect size estimates - which is one of the most crucial steps in any HIA. By providing a step-by-step presentation of how HIA has been applied in practice, attendees will gain unique insights in the different ways by which HIA can be used to gain insights into the relative impact of policy strategies for tobacco control.

Key messages

• Tobacco use remains the largest contributor to preventable disease burden in Europe; a key area for analysing policies using health impact assessment.

• Attendees will gain unique insights in the different ways by which HIA can be used to gain insights into the relative impact of policy strategies for tobacco control.