Abstract:
Objective To estimate human and financial resources allocation for tobacco control in three provinces, China in 2019 for providing evidence to relevant policy-making.
Methods With stratified sampling, a survey was conducted among 30 administrative agencies, 25 professional institutions and 137 staff in those organizations in 18 districts/counties of three provinces in eastern, central and western China during July – December 2020. The information for the year of 2019 on tobacco control-related financial investment of the organizations and working hours of the staff were collected by investigators. Population weighting was used in data analysis.
Results In 2019 for the eastern, central and western province, the working hours-converted number of tobacco control staff were 114.1, 139.4 and 154.2 and the total tobacco control-related investment were 45 089, 27 308 and 36 176 million Chinese yuan, respectively. Higher proportion (more than 80%) of office expenses against overall financial investment for tobacco control implementation was observed in the central and western provinces. The tobacco control-related investment per capita for the three provinces were 0.5, 0.6 and 0.8 Chinese yuan. Tobacco control publicity, smoking prevalence surveillance and smoke-free environment construction were priorities of tobacco control implementation in the three provinces.
Conclusion In 2019, there was still an obvious gap in the tobacco control-related financial investment between the three provinces surveyed and those administrative divisions with better tobacco control in China and the situation needs to be concerned in the promotion of tobacco control.