Where Data Tells the Story
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Smokers are about 21 times more likely to die from lung cancer than people who never smoked, and they face increased risks from over a dozen other diseases. I know people who died from smoking: you probably do too.
In 2008, the World Health Organization created a set of tobacco control policies with different tiers, the highest of which are considered “best practices” — they are listed on the chart.
The chart also shows the share of the global population living in countries that had enacted these policies as of 2007 and 2024.
What surprised me is how recent most of these policies still are. In 2007, only a tiny share of the global population benefited from these policies. Since then, coverage has increased across all these measures, but most of them still reach less than half of the world's population.