Lungs on the run: 50 million steps towards a tobacco-free Indonesia

Introduction: According to the Tobacco Atlas, Indonesia has one of the highest smoking rates in the world (57.1% men / 41% boys / 3.5% women) and has been described as “Disneyland” for big tobacco firms. There are limited tobacco control policies in Indonesia. Objectives: To enforce the TAPS (advertising) ban and smoke-free regulation in 5 cities in Indonesia: Jakarta, Bogor, Bandung, Surabaya, and Denpasar. To promote sports events free from tobacco industry sponsorship. Methods: Vital Strategies initiated the #LungsOnTheRun campaign on World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2019. We managed the virtual run event and collaborated with online platform “99 Virtual Race”. The event raised awareness about health harms of tobacco while encouraging physical fitness. Participants signed up online, committing to run 50 km between May 1 and May 30 at organized events in the cities or at a time, pace and place convenient to them. Their cumulative run distance was tracked using their own phones over the 30 day period, through the “99 Virtual Race” run tracking app. Our target was to reach a collective 20 million steps by all participants. Results: The initiative engaged the IndoRunners community, which had never participated in any tobacco control initiative - Mayors and department heads attended the public event in five cities. - 1,000 runners reached a total of more than 50 million steps, 30 million over the target - On social media, the campaign reached 3 million people - 63 earned media hits with US$137768 PR value. Conclusion(s): #LungsOnTheRun initiative is a new creative way to engage with tobacco control supporters through combining the digital campaign and offline, public event. With a small budget, the campaign reached millions of people online and offline to raise awareness about the health harms of tobacco.