Published on: May 31, 2025
World No Tobacco Day 2025 – Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products.
On the World Tobacco Day observed on 31st May every year, Department of Community Medicine, HIMS, SRHU, Jollygrant, Dehradun commemorated the occasion through a series of academic and outreach activities aimed to empower healthcare professionals and educate the public on urgent need to recognize and counter the manipulative strategies employed by tobacco and nicotine industries and to promote effective tobacco control measures aligned with the global theme for World No Tobacco Day 2025, “Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products,”
A training session for MBBS interns to equip them with necessary knowledge and skills to effectively counsel individuals on tobacco cessation, support their quitting journey and understand the manipulative tactics of tobacco industry incorporating question and answer session to ensure active participation and confidence building. Dr. Anshu Prasad (SR), Dr. Twinkle Sharma (SR), Dr. Simrata Singh Dhindsa (JR) and Dr. Vidit Puri (JR) from Psychiatry department raised awareness on Fagerstrom scale which is used to assess severity of nicotine dependence in the tobacco users. They also taught the interns about methods of tobacco deaddiction.
Dr. Vaibhav Rana conducted an awareness session for the urban population, focusing on harms of tobacco use, benefits of quitting and critically to expose deceptive tactics of relevant industries, in line with World Tobacco Day 2025 theme at UTHC, Kurkawala.
Dr. Chirag Joshi’s conducted a training session and addressed the rural community, highlighting the information on locally available tobacco cessation centres and resources, importance of creating smoke-free environments, empowering individuals especially youths to resist initiation.at RHTC, Gohri Mafi.
MBBS students of batch 2022 & 2024 took a pledge to not smoke or consume any type of tobacco in their life and to motivate people around them for the same; to keep their surroundings tobacco-free.
The activities conducted by the Department of Community Medicine on World No Tobacco Day 2025 were successful in enhancing the capacity of future healthcare professionals in tobacco cessation and in raising public awareness regarding the critical issue of tobacco control, with a strong focus on “Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products.” The intern training program provided valuable skills in both cessation and in understanding industry manipulation, while the health talks effectively disseminated crucial information to the community, empowering them to make informed decisions and resist industry influences.
