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** 10 January 2024
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** UK
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** Fewer pregnant women in Wirral were smokers when they gave birth (#1)
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** ‘Please learn from us’: Coventry uses Marmot review to fight inequality (#2)
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** International
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** Four words prove just how easy it is to get around Anthony Albanese's vape crackdown (#5)
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** UK
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** Fewer pregnant women in Wirral were smokers when they gave birth

Fewer pregnant women in Wirral were smokers when they gave birth, new figures show, as the total decreased across England.

Maternal smoking rates across the country fell from 9.1% in the three months to September 2022-23 to 7.5% in the same period of 2023-24.

However, it meant the national target of 6% was missed yet again, with Action on Smoking and Health saying the Government is not on track to hit it until around 2032.

NHS Digital figures show there were 54 pregnant women who were known to be smokers at the time of delivery in Wirral in the three months to September 2023.

This was equivalent to 7.9% of all 687 mothers registered at the former NHS Wirral CCG area – down from 10.6% during the same period in 2022-23.

Hazel Cheeseman, deputy chief executive at Action on Smoking and Health, said: “Smoking rates during pregnancy have fallen over the last decade, although nationally we are not on track to hit the Government’s 6% ambition until around 2032, a decade later than hoped for.

“Maternal smoking increases the risk of poor birth outcomes, including still birth, miscarriage and birth defects, so it's vital that every pregnant woman is offered support to quit smoking.”

There were some regional disparities, with the highest maternal smoking rate (10.1%) in the North East and Yorkshire, while the lowest was in London – 3.8%. The figure stood at 8.5% in the North West.

Ms Cheeseman added: “Progress has improved over the last year coinciding with the roll out of new dedicated stop smoking support in maternity services.

“A new national financial incentive scheme for pregnant smokers and their partners due to be rolled out this year should further accelerate progress.

“However, more needs to be done to tackle the significant disparities in maternal smoking rates between different parts of the country and to address high rates of women relapsing to smoking postnatally.”

Source: Liverpool World, 9 January 2024

See also: NHS Digital - Statistics on Women's Smoking Status at Time of Delivery: England, Quarter 2, 2023-24 ([link removed]) | ASH – A manifesto for smokefree beginnings ([link removed])
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** ‘Please learn from us’: Coventry uses Marmot review to fight inequality

In 2013, Coventry city council decided to become a self-described “Marmot city”, which meant working in partnership with the Institute of Health Equity at University College London to improve wellbeing and reduce disparities in health outcomes within the local population. Between 2010 and 2012, there was an 11-year gap between life expectancy at birth between men with the highest and lowest incomes, while the inequality between women in those income brackets stood at eight years.

“Coventry is quite a small and compact city, and there is widespread deprivation but there are also pockets of severe deprivation, and it’s a very diverse community,” says Angela Baker, a public health consultant for health inequalities and life chances at the council. “We felt that the Marmot tools, particularly the Marmot review, gave us a good framework.”

By being a Marmot city, all policies and services commissioned across Coventry, such as housing and transport, will take into account the impact they will have on health equity before they are implemented.

Dr Sarah Raistrick, a GP in Willenhall in Coventry, and co-chair of the Coventry Marmot Partnership, said considering how policymaking would affect the health outcomes of the population had been “embraced as a default way of working across the whole city regardless of what sector people are in”.

She added: “There’s a real understanding that the Marmot principles are things that underpin the way that we want to commission services, deliver services, and work with people to reduce health inequalities and improve outcomes.”

One key strategy from Marmot’s review that Coventry has adopted into its policymaking is proportionate universalism, meaning that in order for health inequalities to be reduced, policies must be considered in regards to everyone but that the scale of intervention is proportionate to the most disadvantaged. “It means that any policy that we make, we think about what different groups need and how different groups will access the service so the outcomes are the same. So the more affluent people need less service to get the same outcome as someone who is more deprived,” Baker says.

In 2015, Coventry was ranked the 60th most deprived local authority, and this dropped to 81st in 2019. The proportion of people considered the most deprived in the local authority reduced from 18.46% in 2015 to 14.36% in 2019, with this drop in percentage points being higher than the trend seen elsewhere across the country.

Although there are areas that still need improving, the work and progress within Coventry has been heralded by its community. “Coventry should be really proud of what it has achieved, both in the improvements that we can point to, but also that we don’t underestimate the power of having a strong united partnership that is really striving for improvement of the population,” Raistrick said.

Source: The Guardian, 8 January 2024

See also: The Marmot Review – Fair Society, Healthy Lives ([link removed])
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** International
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** Four words prove just how easy it is to get around Anthony Albanese's vape crackdown

Despite the Albanese government's ban on importing disposable vape products in Australia, it is as easy as it has ever been to buy them with the black market operating in plain sight.

Selling nicotine vapes has been illegal since 2021 under laws introduced by the previous Morrison government, but many retailers have brazenly continued to sell them illegally.

In an attempt to fix the flaws in the previous legislation and crackdown on the supply of vapes at convenience stores, Albanese government health minister Mark Butler introduced a nationwide ban on the importation of disposable vapes on January 1.

Mr Butler called the reforms 'world-leading' as they kicked in last week, adding: 'If you vape, this new year make it your resolution to quit.'

But Mr Butler's 'world-leading' crackdown appears to be going up in smoke, with specialised retailers and convenience stores still selling illicit disposable vapes containing nicotine, continuing to defy the government's regulations.

Along King Street in the trendy Sydney suburb of Newtown, Daily Mail Australia journalist Olivia Day spotted at least 20 independent and chain stores selling illegal nicotine vapes, illicit cigarettes and other smoking devices.

Surprisingly, the transaction for this forbidden vice was as smooth as buying everyday legal goods.

No ID checks to confirm age, no secretive whispers – just a straightforward exchange of my credit card for the contraband.

Just four simple words were required: 'Do you sell vapes?'

Professor Simon Chapman of Public Health at the University of Sydney said vapes needed to be strictly regulated, and objected to calling the reforms a 'ban'.

“Vapes are not being banned but strictly regulated like they always should have been. Anyone who says they are banned probably also believes that every prescribed drug in Australia is by the same argument also banned,” Professor Chapman told media.

“Vaping was sold to governments and to communities all around the world as a therapeutic product to help long term smokers quit,” Mr Butler said in a National Press Club address in May 2023.

“It was not sold as a recreational product, and in particular, not one for our kids. That is what it has become.”

Mr Butler criticised the former Coalition government, saying they were not strict enough on regulating vape imports, and simultaneously created excessive hurdles for smokers seeking legal prescriptions.

“The former government ended up creating the perfect conditions for this unregulated, essentially illegal market to flourish right before our eyes,” Mr Butler said.

“A so-called prescription model with next to no prescriptions, a ban with no real enforcement and an addictive product with no support to quit.”

Source: The Daily Mail, 9 January 2024
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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