Senegal Smoking Rate Drops to 4.4% as Data Hub Launches

Senegal’s smoking prevalence dropped from over 6% to roughly 4.4%, driven by targeted tobacco tax policies and national control measures. Abdoulaye Diagne, Executive Director of the Consortium for Economic and Social Research (CRES), announced the findings during the official launch of the Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI) platform in Dakar.

“The percentage of people who smoke in Senegal has decreased between the last two surveys. We consider this an important step forward,” Diagne stated, crediting state efforts to reform tobacco taxation.

Tracking National Vaping and Tobacco Use via TCDI

Developed in partnership with Senegal’s National Tobacco Control Program (PNLT), the TCDI platform aims to centralize fragmented public health statistics for policymakers, researchers, and media outlets.

The platform aggregates data across several core areas:

Demographics: Smoking rates among youth, adolescents, and adults.
Exposure: Second-hand smoke prevalence in public and private spaces.
Alternative Products: Electronic cigarette adoption and use rates.
Economics: Tobacco product taxation, retail pricing, and fiscal revenue.

Project organizers confirmed that data on the illicit tobacco trade and emerging nicotine products will be integrated into the system in upcoming phases.

Guiding Future Public Health Policy

While welcoming the statistical decline, Professor Diagne emphasized that major challenges remain, pointing to the need for “reliable and accessible data to guide public policies.”

Dr. Oumar Ba, coordinator of the PNLT, underscored that the dashboard provides verified, documented metrics that align with international benchmarks. He recalled that Senegal enacted its comprehensive tobacco control law in 2014 after ratifying the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).

Health officials plan to use the updated platform to identify enforcement gaps, monitor black-market distribution, and refine taxation models to sustain the downward trend in smoking rates.

Source: La prévalence du tabagisme au Sénégal a baissé de 2,4 % (étude)

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