n December 1998, the World Health Organization's Tobacco Free Initiative (WHO TFI) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health (CDC OSH) convened a meeting to discuss the need for collecting data on tobacco use among adults and adolescents. In addition to WHO and CDC, at least one country representative from each of the six WHO Regions and other international agencies, such as UNICEF and the World Bank, attended the meeting. The groups reached consensus on several points.