The Global Tobacco Control Progress Hub is a new interactive data analytics platform that provides a “window on the world” of WHO FCTC treaty implementation. The platform was launched in 2022 by ASH Canada and the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The main purpose of the Progress Hub is to provide tobacco control stakeholders with increased access to FCTC implementation data and to improve treaty monitoring, surveillance and reporting.

“The Progress Hub allows tobacco control stakeholders to easily engage in FCTC monitoring and surveillance including civil society organizations, tobacco control advocates, the news media, governments, academics and research organizations” said Les Hagen, executive director of ASH Canada. “The platform will enable more stakeholders to take an active role in the implementation of FCTC Articles 20 and 21 which are cornerstones of the treaty. It is impossible to effectively monitor treaty implementation without measuring progress along the way. The Progress Hub provides essential surveillance infrastructure for the FCTC”.

The Progress Hub contains numerous capabilities, features and functions including four interactive dashboards to examine (1) overall global treaty implementation, (2) national implementation of the FCTC, (3) national implementation of the MPOWER policy package, and (4) comparisons among over 180 countries. The Hub contains 300 indicators spanning 12 years of data reporting to WHO by participating countries. There are over 400,000 datapoints in the platform and users can select country views with each dashboard based on WHO region, World Bank national income level, and Human Development Index scores.

The Progress Hub also simplifies FCTC shadow reporting by civil society organizations. ASH Canada is assisting CSOs with the production of national shadow reports in advance of the 10^th Conference of the Parties to be convened this November in Panama City. Shadow (parallel) reporting is an important part of treaty monitoring and surveillance. The important role of CSOs is officially recognized Article 4 of the FCTC as follows; “The participation of civil society is essential in achieving the objective of the Convention and its protocols”.

The platform was built using Tableau Public data visualization software and more dashboards, features, functions and capabilities are in the works. ASH Canada is also producing new implementation profiles for each FCTC Article contained on the Hub and is exploring other ways to analyze and disseminate the enormous dataset.

“We encourage all tobacco control stakeholders to take a deep dive into FCTC treaty implementation by visiting the Global Tobacco Control Progress Hub” Hagen added. “We welcome your feedback and suggestions for improvement as we continue to develop and refine this robust surveillance platform.”

Please feel free to contact ASH Canada directly at info@ash.ca for more information.

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Progress Hub Content

• FCTC datasets for 2016, 2018, 2020 supplied by WHO Tobacco-Free Initiative
• MPOWER scoring and indicator datasets for 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 supplied by WHO FCTC Secretariat
• Country HDI gradients supplied by Our World in Data
• Country income gradients supplied by World Bank
• Adult and youth national smoking data supplied by WHO FCTC Secretariat
• Tobacco mortality rate data supplied by WHO FCTC Secretariat
• Cigarette tax scorecards supplied by Tobacconomics
• Tobacco Industry Interference national profiles supplied by STOP