Assessment of Tobacco Control Policy Instruments, Status and Effectiveness in Africa: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Introduction:The tobacco industry has for decades been associated with environmental damage, health-related diseases, human rights violations and corruption issues. The World Health Organisation formulated the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control with the aim of controlling tobacco production and consumption. Most of the countries on the continent of Africa were also the target of the framework given the high importation and use of tobacco products. The main aim of this study was to find out the current status of tobacco control policies and their effectiveness in Africa. Material and Methods: This study was a systematic literature review that was conducted between the months of August and November 2020 by extracting data from the databases of PubMed, Elsevier Scopus and Web of Science. Only English articles were culled from the retrieved papers. Out of the 910 papers retrieved, only 17 papers from African countries were selected on the quality synthesis after meeting the inclusion criteria. Results:The results of the study showed that three governance resources were identified of regulatory (64.70%, N=11) which had smoke-free environment, advertisement bans, and cessation programs, economics (29.41%, N=5) which were taxation measures and informative (5.886%, N=1) which were mass media campaigns. Furthermore, Western African countries especially South Africa reported many pronouncements on smoke-free environment and taxation measures. Mass media campaigns proved to be more effective policies as compared to others. Conclusion:This study recommends that the future research should be done on the effectiveness of mixed policy instruments as compared to single application. Furthermore, the researcher recommends the use of more informative policies in dealing with inelastic behaviours like those related to tobacco due to the addictive nature.

A Scoping Review of Tobacco Control Health Communication in Africa: Moving towards Involving Young People

“…These studies were not able to provide detailed information on the type of content or medium of presentation for anti-tobacco campaigns and messages when targeting young people. There is need to qualitatively ascertain the content that better suits young people based on their perspective, especially as mass-media campaigns and advertising bans have been identified as the most effective policies in Africa when applied singularly and mixed [ 61 ].…”

What is the Sustainability of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) Amidst of Covid-19? Its Impact on Household Income Level and its Determining Factors-Lessons from Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Malawi is located in the southern part of Africa, bordering countries like Zambia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. It is one of the least developing countries in the world where a majority of its population still faces hunger, malnutrition's and live under the poverty line [23][24][25], and depend mostly on agriculture for business and feeding the population [26]. In Malawi, the study was conducted in Mzuzu city, which is located in the northern part with an estimated total population of 221, 272, and a land area of 143.8 square kilometres as of 2019, that is divided into 14 wards, namely; Chibanja, Chibavi West, Chibavi East, Chiputula, Jombo-Kaning'ina, Katawa, Lupaso-Nkhorongo, Luwinga, Masasa, Mchengautuwa East, Mchengautuwa West, Mzilawaingwe, Zolozolo East, and Zolozolo West) as shown in Figure 1, with the majority of its populations depending on agriculture activities, business, and working as civil servants in many governmental and non-governmental intuition s that are found in the city, furthermore, According to recent studies, Mzuzu City has been attributed as one of the fastest growing city in Malawi, due to its social economic activities [27].…”

An investigation of the Sustainability of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) amidst Covid-19 and its impact on household income levels: lessons from Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Malawi is located in the southern part of Africa, bordering countries like Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique [ 32 , 33 ]. It is one of the least developing countries in the world where a majority of its population still faces hunger, malnutrition, and lives under the poverty line [ 15 , 34 , 35 ], and depend mostly on agriculture for business and feeding the population [ 36 ]. In Malawi, the study was specifically conducted in Mzuzu city, which is located in the northern part and the city has an estimated total population of 221, 272, and a land area of 143.8 square kilometers as of 2019.…”