BALTIMORE, Anyone can take an active role in the local tobacco control effort by using or contributing to the Tobacco Pack Surveillance System (TPackSS).
Developed by the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, TPackSS features a searchable database of over 6,600 tobacco packs collected from 14 low- and middle-income countries.
The site includes photos and other key information about each of these packs to allow anyone the opportunity to learn about how tobacco companies market their products. The information may include whether the pack meets federal regulations.
Currently, TPackSS covers Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam.
Katherine Clegg Smith, PhD, a Professor in the Department of Health, Behavior & Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that TPackSS serves as an important tool in monitoring tobacco packaging and labeling policies in these countries.
The goal of TPackSS is to monitor the proper implementation of required health warnings on tobacco packages, and to identify pack design features and marketing appeals that might violate or detract from country tobacco packaging requirements in these countries.
Visitors to the site can upload tobacco packaging from their country through the easy-to-use Share a Pack feature to help grow the database of available tobacco products.
This article was shared with Prittle Prattle News as a Press Release by PRNewswire
