Tobacco Free City, a new tobacco control program of the Gates Tobacco Control Project in China, has been formally initiated in Qingdao, Shandong province.
Tobacco Free City is a program launched by Jeffrey P. Koplan, the vice president for Global Health at Emory University and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The program is supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the aim of reducing tobacco related diseases and death through effective, responsible and sustainable tobacco control initiatives. The key mission of the program is to prevent smoking among youngsters and women, to promote quitting smoking among adults and young people, and to eliminate the harm that tobacco does to the environment.
Koplan said that Tobacco Free City is a pilot project in the expansion of tobacco control work and he hoped that more and more cities will join this program.
It is learned that the first batch of cities that have been selected for the program in China are Shanghai, Wuxi, Changsha, Ningbo, Luoyang, Qingdao,Tangshan.
