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A team of researchers from the University of York have found that interventions to support smoking cessation, tailored to the needs of people accessing mental health services, are cost-effective over 12 months. This was mainly due to lower use of expensive hospital-based healthcare services, among people receiving the intervention.
The research, conducted for the Smoking Cessation Intervention for Severe Mental Ill Health (SCIMITAR) Trial, evaluated the cost effectiveness of targeted approaches to support smokers using mental health services to successfully quit versus usual care.
NHS figures show that smoking rates among people who use mental health services are among the highest of any population group. This contributes to profound health inequalities, with life expectancy around 20 years lower among people with conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar illness.
Dr Emily Peckham, senior research fellow from the department of health sciences, who managed the SCIMITAR study, said: “The benefits of giving up smoking are enormous. People feel better, and they have more money when they are able to quit. Over time, we speculated that there might also be financial benefits to the NHS since it is very costly to treat smoking related illnesses."
Study lead, Professor Simon Gilbody, from the University of York, said: "Smoking kills large numbers of people every year and people who use mental health services have been left behind in the societal reductions in smoking rates."
Source: Yorkshire Post, 10 June 2020
See also
Addiction: Cost‐effectiveness of a specialist smoking cessation package compared with standard smoking cessation services for people with severe mental illness in England: a trial‐based economic evaluation from the SCIMITAR+ study
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Nursing in Practice has published a new learning module on supporting smokers to quit for COVID. The module can only be accessed by those with access to the Nursing in Practice website.
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African Americans who smoke are nearly 2.5 times more likely to have a stroke than those who never smoked, while former smokers show a similarly lower risk as never smokers, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The findings from the Jackson Heart Study suggests that even after years of smoking, African Americans - who as a group are twice as likely as white Americans to have a stroke and die from it - could significantly reduce their stroke risk if they quit smoking.
The study included 4,410 black men and women without a history of stroke and who were enrolled in the Jackson Heart Study, the largest study of cardiovascular disease in African Americans. Researchers classified the participants, who were 54 on average, into three groups based on their self-reported smoking history: current smokers, past smokers who smoked at least 400 cigarettes in their lifetimes, and never smokers. Researchers followed participants from their initial evaluations beginning in 2000 through to 2015.
After accounting for multiple risk factors for stroke, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol levels, and older age, researchers calculated that current smokers carried a risk for stroke that was more than double the risk for never smokers. This risk nearly tripled for those smoking 20 or more cigarettes each day.
Michael E. Hall, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and corresponding study author, noted that while smoking has been shown in major studies to raise the risk of stroke 1.5 times for the general population, "these adverse health effects seem to be magnified in African Americans."
Source: News Medical Sciences, 10 June 2020
Journal of the American Heart Association. Cigarette Smoking and Incident Stroke in Blacks of the Jackson Heart Study
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PQ1-6: Tobacco litter (Grouped questions)
1. Asked by Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a scheme to tackle smoking-related litter by securing a contribution from the UK tobacco industry to pay for the initiative.
2. Asked by Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of smoking related litter on (a) bird life, (b) marine life and (c) other aspects of the natural environment.
3. Asked by Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the amount and proportion of litter on beaches originating from tobacco products.
4. Asked by Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to require the tobacco industry to help tackle the littering of its products.
5. Asked by Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of (a) the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for tobacco products with filters that is being introduced in the EU and (b) adopting a similar model to that scheme in the UK.
6. Asked by Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to encourage major tobacco companies to (a) undertake activities in respect of and (b) provide financial support for tackling smoking-related litter.
Answered by Rebecca Pow, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Figures from the Great British Beach Clean 2019 report that cigarette stubs were the second most frequently-found type of litter item on UK beaches, with an average of 42.6 stubs found per 100 metres. UK Government scientists are currently carrying out chemical and toxicological experiments to evaluate the potential harm caused to the marine environment by cigarette stubs. This work will be published by 2022.
The Government has made no specific recent assessment of the UK tobacco industry's contribution to tackling smoking-related litter. I refer honourable members to the answer I gave on 23 March to PQ 29305:
https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020-03-13/29305/.
The Government would like to see the tobacco industry delivering on the commitment given by the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association to tackle the litter created by its products and their users. The Government supports ongoing efforts by Keep Britain Tidy (KBT). KBT works in partnership with the tobacco industry to devise a voluntary scheme through which the industry can contribute to the clean-up of cigarette related litter.
Clause 48 in Section 3 of the Environment Bill also grants powers to introduce extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes. In the Resources and Waste Strategy, we committed to looking into and consulting on EPR for five new waste-streams by 2025, and consulting on two of these by 2022. Waste tobacco filters were not included in this list of priorities but progress on the industry's voluntary approach to litter reduction will be monitored.
Tobacco packaging is covered by the current producer responsibility regulations, which require companies to recycle a proportion of the packaging waste they place on the market. Producers of tobacco packaging will also be subject to the forthcoming EPR scheme for packaging which will cover the full net costs of managing packaging at its end of life. In our consultation we proposed that producer fees should cover the full cost to local authorities of dealing with littered and fly-tipped packaging waste.
Source: Hansard, 10 June 2020
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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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