The tenth edition of the WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic (1), released in June 2025, presents the latest comparative data to assess global, regional and national progress in protecting people from the harms of tobacco use. To support evidence-based policy dialogue in the WHO European Region, a set of measure specific factsheets has been developed, each summarizing the implementation of one MPOWER1 component. This factsheet provides an overview of the status of the M — Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies measure as of 2024.

Key messages

• In 2024, the vast majority of countries in the WHO European Region had recent, representative data on tobacco use among either adults or adolescents.
• Forty-two countries (79%) had achieved the recommended level of monitoring for both groups and thus had recent, representative and periodic data on both adults and adolescents (Fig. 1).

What should be done?

• Prioritize and fund the monitoring of tobacco use and prevention policies. Monitoring provides the basis for effective tobacco-control policy development and implementation.
• Include within this tobacco-control monitoring, the:
  • surveillance of tobacco-use indicators, patterns and trends, including the surveillance of new and emerging nicotine and tobacco products;
  • tracking of exposure to tobacco smoke; and
  • monitoring of policies to reduce tobacco use.
• Use standardized monitoring and surveillance tools to ensure comparable data.
• Conduct regular surveys to measure changes in tobacco use over time.
• Consider including standardized questions in national surveys or censuses on the prevalence of tobacco use and the implementation of MPOWER measures.
• Disseminate findings through government policy papers, academic publications and mass
  media, including news reports and paid media (3,4).