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Robert West, emeritus professor of health psychology at University College London and a participant in the behavioural science subgroup of Sage, shares his opinions around the government’s evolving policy about COVID-19. He argues that the government’s new rule to close bars and restaurants in England at 10 pm has to be backed up by scientific evidence, which should include relevant data on the likely number of infections, hospitalisations and deaths averted by closing bars at that time.
He draws on the example of debates about tobacco control, from how risky smoking is to current debates about relative safety of e-cigarettes to argue that numbers must be used to achieve clarity not vague quantifications. He highlights that behavioural scientists asked to judge the effectiveness of the 10pm curfew could use previous evidence, such as from 2005 when pubs and bars were permitted to remain open later in England and Wales, to put numerical estimates on the impact of different policies, stating that these impacts are: “quantifiable albeit imprecise”.
He concludes saying that: “unless policymakers engage with numbers as concrete statements of what can be expected, there is no basis for rational decision making.”
Source: The Guardian, 30 September 2020
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The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) is officially smokefree for staff, patients and visitors from yesterday, 1 October 2020.
The Trust, which runs New Cross and Cannock Chase hospitals, has gone smokefree in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance. According to the guidance, all hospital sites should be 100% smokefree, helping to create a culture where smoking is no longer consider ‘the norm’, with smokers in hospital offered tobacco dependency treatment to protect local communities from preventable illness.
David Loughton CBE, chief executive for RWT, said: “… Through the NHS Long Term Plan, every smoker admitted to our hospitals will now be offered support to quit, while outpatients and staff will be signposted to a number of free resources. We are extremely proud to be making this change which actively encourages healthy behaviours and reduces the risk of harm to others.”
Source: Express and star, 1 October 2020
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The best way to communicate with parent smokers about the risks of secondhand smoke to their children is to use videos depicting the risks, as well as solutions to reduce those risks. Those were the findings of a study which demonstrates that video messages, compared to text-only messages, are significantly more effective in influencing parent smokers’ intentions to protect their offspring from exposure to secondhand smoke.
Researchers from both the Center of Tobacco Studies at Rutgers University and The SIDS Center of New Jersey, assessed 623 adult daily smokers living with children in the US, aged 0–15. The participants were assigned to view messages that differed by recommendation (stopping altogether vs exposure reduction), and format (video vs text-only), or to a no-message control group.
Reporting on their findings, lead author Dr Jennah Sontag stated: “All forms of communication tested in the study were effective in influencing perceptions and intentions about the risks of secondhand smoke for children, indicating that even communication that lasts only one to two minutes or is presented in text form may influence parent smokers to reduce or eliminate secondhand smoke exposure to children. But our research suggests that sharing this information visually through a video can be especially effective, and these videos should include recommendations for both cessation and ways to protect children from secondhand smoke.”
Source: Medical Xpress, 30 September 2020
See also: Secondhand Smoke Risk Communication: Effects on Parent Smokers’ Perceptions and Intentions
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The government has published a draft of the Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (2020 Regulations) which amends the existing 2019 regulations and implement the obligations of the Northern Ireland Protocol in law.
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On Monday, 28 September, ASH in collaboration with Fresh, hosted a webinar on the importance of public health to COVID-19 recovery. The webinar jointly covering tobacco, obesity and alcohol, consider the impact of changes to the public health system, including the disbanding of Public Health England (PHE), and what the aims for the public health system should be looking forwards.
The webinar was recorded and is available online.
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The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has published minutes from a smoking-related litter roundtable meeting held on 2 September. Rebecca Pow, the Environment Minister, met with members of the tobacco industry and environmental charity, Keep Britain Tidy, observed by ASH, to discuss smoking related litter in England and why the tobacco industry is not addressing this problem.
Source: DEFRA, 28 September 2020
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Registration for the NICE public health advisory committee meeting on Tobacco on Wednesday 4 and Thursday 5 November 2020 will open on the NICE website on Wednesday 7 October 2020.
The link to register will open on this page: https://www.nice.org.uk/event/phacf-november-2020.
Registration will close on Wednesday 21 October 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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