From the US Department of Health & Human Services, Center for Disease Control Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) November 22, 2013

The report indicates that opportunities exist globally for health-care providers to screen for tobacco use and to provide smokers with affective counseling to quit. It is recommended that health-care providers screen all patients for tobacco use, and for those who are tobacco users, to provide advice to quit, offering assistance through counseling and the use of appropriate medications, and to arrange for follow-up counseling sessions. A unified code of practice on tobacco control for health professionals was adopted and signed in January 2004 by the participants at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting on health professionals and tobacco control in Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose of this code was to encourage tobacco use prevention and cessation counseling on a global level. The report emphasized that the “international consensus for promoting effective cessation treatment can be used to further promote these practices in the clinical setting.” To view the entire report in PDF format see http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

Globally, the effective use of health-care provider screening for tobacco use and cessation counseling varies widely, while many opportunities to offer cessation treatment to tobacco users are being missed. The report concludes that “to reduce the worldwide burden of tobacco use, implementation of WHO FCTC, WHO’s MPOWER package, and further implementation of the cessation guidelines to promote cessation and increase tobacco dependence treatment is warranted.”*

*Additional information available at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/global.
*CDC. Tobacco use and cessation counseling—Global Health Professionals Survey Pilot Study, 2005. MMWR 2005;54:505–9.