Smoking and Burden of Ill Health: A Review of the Malaysian Context

Tobacco smoking is a growing pandemic and in Malaysia, with the current smoking epidemic; the prevalence of smoking in Malaysia is high and tobacco related morbidity and mortality in Malaysia is equally high. The relative effectiveness of the tobacco control programmes implemented in Malaysia is measured by the prevalence of tobacco consumption among the public. Incidentally, as the prevalence of smoking is rising among Malaysian youths, the health interventions on tobacco control are predominantly targeted to the younger population. However, studies have demonstrated the lack of effectiveness of the tobacco control programmes stated in this report among Malaysian youths. Despite the low rate of quit smoking among Malaysian youths, smoking cessation services worldwide has been shown to have favourable impacts on quitting behaviours among smokers. Therefore, indicating that success rate of quit smoking among Malaysian younger population can be improved by improvising the current standard of treatment of Quit Smoking Clinic. However, for smoking cessation to be effective on national level, multiple interventions are to be integrated to ensure a healthy population with reduced number of smokers.