Background:
The FCTC country reports indicate that 70% of the reporting parties have implemented Article 12 in their jurisdictions. The MPOWER Report 2015 also indicates that nearly 40% of the Parties conducted at least one anti-tobacco national mass-media campaign. However, both reports do not provide any specific information on implementation of Article 12 with respect to SLT products. There are 23 Parties with more than 1 million SLT users.

Methods:
This paper presents an analysis of the FCTC country reports, MPOWER report, besides the relevant indicators under GYTS, GSPS, GHPS and GATS with respect to mass-media, education and training efforts undertaken and reported by the Parties with high SLT burden. The health warning regulations of these parties has been reviewed. The paper also looks at other sources of mass-media information on hazards of SLT use like YouTube.

Results:

The analysis reveals that:

• Only a limited number of Parties have implemented national and sub-national mass-media campaign on SLT.
• India is the only country with dedicated national mass-media on anti-SLT awareness, besides tobacco free schools, communities and villages.
• Only nine Parties from high burden countries have implemented health warnings on SLT.
• Some countries have also used mass-media including YouTube for raising anti-SLT awareness besides earned media.
• School education have limited information on hazards of SLT use.
• Limited Parties have included prevention of tobacco use in school curriculum.
• Teachers are not trained nor do they have access to teaching materials for youth tobacco prevention.

Conclusions:
Parties with high SLT burden should use the Global Tobacco Surveillance System to collect data on various aspects of Article 12 on SLT use. This will help in developing and implementing focused and comprehensive national media education and communication initiatives to prevent SLT use, especially among vulnerable population group. Social media campaigns can also be used as effective interventions for SLT control.