International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project

The Netherlands and more than 170 other countries have ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The FCTC includes legally binding international rules on topics such as tobacco marketing, pricing policies, health warning labels, education, and smoke-free legislation. The International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project  (ITC project) is specifically designed to evaluate the impact of FCTC policies as they are being implemented throughout the world. The ITC project conducts longitudinal cohort surveys in more than 20 countries. Since 2008, a cohort of tobacco smokers is being followed with yearly survey waves in the Netherlands. With data from the ITC Netherlands Survey, we have evaluated the impact of smoke-free legislation, mass media campaigns, health warning labels, reimbursement of smoking cessation aids, and tax increases. The coming years, we plan to evaluate the impact of European regulations that are being implemented from 2016 forwards and include the implementation of pictorial health warnings and stricter regulations for electronic cigarettes.