The Government of Turkey today announced that substantially fewer Turkish adult citizens smoked cigarettes in 2012 versus 2008. In its announcement, the Turkish government cited results from its second round of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS). The survey showed that 14.8 million people or 27.1 percent of the Turkish population indicated that they smoked in 2012 versus 16 million people or 31.2 percent of the population in 2008. This work was made possible by a grant to the CDC Foundation from Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use.

To provide standardized tobacco use data and track key tobacco control measures, Bloomberg Philanthropies is providing the CDC Foundation with a two-year, $14 million grant that will enable CDC, in partnership with the World Health Organization, to conduct repeat tobacco usage surveys in 11 countries to measure tobacco control progress.