India Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2020

India Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2020

Consultancy project with the State Anti-Tobacco Cell

Led by Dr. Upendra Bhojani and Adhip Amin from IPH, the India Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2020 report has been produced through a collaborative work of several institutions and individuals active in tobacco control research and practice in India. The report was released in September 2020 at the 5th National Conference on Tobacco or Health (NCTOH)-Virtual. Dr. Upendra Bhojani participated in the conference and was a panelist in a session that focused on Stopping Tobacco Industry Interference. The NCTOH panel talk and release is available here at NCTOH youtube page.

This report is a systematic and collaborative effort at assessing the implementation of the WHO FCTC Article 5.3 in India. The Tobacco Industry Interference Index helps to assess the implementation of the FCTC Article 5.3 through standardized tools using a systematic inquiry and materials in the public domain. Index report and summary are available for download at the India country page on the Global Tobacco Index webportal.

Tobacco industry interference in public policies remains a major concern in India. The overall score for the India 2020 Tobacco Industry Interference Index is 61 out of 100. This suggests a small but definite improvement in implementation of the FCTC Article 5.3 in 2019 compared to the year 2018 (score 69/100) and 2017 (score 72/100). Higher score indicates greater interference.

 

 

Ketki Shah – Doctoral Fellowship (DBT/WT India Alliance)

Ketki Shah – Doctoral Fellowship (DBT/WT India Alliance)

Consultancy project with the State Anti-Tobacco Cell

Ketki Shah received a doctoral fellowship under the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance project led by Dr. Upendra Bhojani. She has registered her PhD in December 2020 at The University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU). At TDU, her PhD is co-supervised by Dr. Prakash BN. Her PhD focuses on understanding from a worker’s perspectives the issues, and experiences with shifting to alternative and safer non-tobacco livelihoods.

Ketki’s PhD is divided into three phases. In the first phase, she plans to do an integrative review to explore and review the initiatives that have been tried out in South and South East Asia. The findings will be used to understand factors that influence transitioning to non-tobacco livelihoods. In the second stage, she aims to map the supply chain of bidi in Gujarat to identify the processes, geographies and workers involved. And finally in the third phase, she plans to conduct a primary qualitative inquiry with former and current bidi workers. This is to understand from their perspectives the dynamics and drivers for transitioning to alternative non-tobacco livelihoods.

She hopes that the evidence generated would inform processes that protect workers (from occupational-hazards and livelihood losses) as the demand and supply for tobacco hopefully reduces with tobacco control measures.

6th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research

6th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research

Consultancy project with the State Anti-Tobacco Cell

Amiti Varma from the DEEP project presented a paper on “Situating tobacco in health policy: Using parliament as an instrument of accountability” at the 6th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (8 – 12 November, 2020). She presented findings from an analysis of two decades of tobacco-related questions in Indian parliament. This is part of a broader project (DEEP) that is also looking at parliamentary questions as one of the ways of understanding public policy towards tobacco.

IPH Representation in South Asia Regional Consortium, SARC

IPH Representation in South Asia Regional Consortium, SARC

Dr. Upendra Bhojani was invited to be a member of a Technical Advisory Panel for the South Asian Regional Consortium Centre for Combating Tobacco (SARC-CCT), Colombo. Other members of the Technical Advisory Panel include Dr. Rana J Singh, Prof. Stella Bialous, Dr. Tara Singh Bam and Dr. Mary Assunta.

The SARC-CCT Technical Advisory Panel represents the regional and international experts who work in the tobacco control field, who are able to help advise and offer guidance to the SARC-CCT. This consortium has representatives from the South Asian states, including Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, India & Sri Lanka. The consortium was first set up and inaugurated in July 2019 as a tobacco observatory, the main purpose of which is to monitor tobacco industry activities and implementation of FCTC Article 5.3 in the region of South Asia. The first meeting of the consortium was held on 30th July 2020 and is scheduled to occur once in three months. 

Consultancy project with the State Anti-Tobacco Cell, Gov of Karnataka

Consultancy project with the State Anti-Tobacco Cell, Gov of Karnataka

Consultancy project with the State Anti-Tobacco Cell

In a project commissioned by the State Anti-Tobacco Cell (Dept Health and Family Welfare Services, GOK), Riddhi and Upendra, researchers at the DEEP project at IPH, with the help of intern Neema Joseph, historically mapped and analyzed various tobacco-related litigations in Karnataka high court in order to identify the stakeholders as well as common laws/arguments used by these stakeholders in shaping tobacco regulations in Karnataka. The project sought to answer two main questions:

1.     What have been the legislations and major arguments used by petitioners in litigations challenging tobacco control regulations in Karnataka?

2.     Who have been the stakeholders engaged directly in litigations related to tobacco in Karnataka?

Upon completion of the study, we presented this work to members of the Tobacco Control Alliance in a meeting organized by the department on 26th July 2020 and later submitted a report of the study physically to the Deputy Director, Dr. Selvaraj who also leads the tobacco control initiative. We discussed a possible follow-up to the study, centred around convening of lawyers and select petitioners, and studying a few key litigations in Karnataka. We believe such insights can help the state government pre-empt legal challenges as well as develop an effective stakeholder-specific response to legal challenges. The team hopes to write and publish a paper based on this work.

Download the ReportHere

LifeFirst – Consultancy Project with Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation

A team from the Chronic Health Conditions and Public Policies cluster at IPH had undertaken a consultancy project with Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation and Salaam Bombay Foundation. This project involved the evaluation of the LifeFirst program, a standardized tobacco- and supari- cessation program conceived and implemented by the Salaam Bombay Foundation and Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation since 2012. The Program targets students studying in 7th to 9th grades in corporation (local government) funded/managed schools in Mumbai city.


The study design, a prospective quasi-experimental design, was conceptualised by researchers Upendra and Pragati at IPH and the program was implemented by the team in Mumbai. The analysis of the study data was led by Amiti with the support of Upendra and Pragati and we found that the program was indeed effective, where the program not only reduced the rates of tobacco and supari use significantly, but also served as a protective factor, protecting against new uptake of tobacco and supari use. This is an important finding: schools are an excellent site for health promotion activities but are rarely used as much as they should and furthermore, such school programs are rarely evaluated for their effectiveness. This collaborative study delivers on both, the health promotion program and the evaluation of this program. The present consultancy was closed with the completion of the project and submission of the final report. We look forward to further collaboration with the team at Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation & Salaam Bombay Foundation.