One In Ten
Just one in 10 of us will be smokers in 2023, say health officials
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by Dave Cross
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A spokesperson for PHE said that smoking rates among adults in England are expected to fall from the current level of 14.9% to around 10% by 2023. The number of smokers in England has already fallen by more than a million since 2014, they added.
This year, the Stoptober push to encourage smokers to switch to vaping or quit will include a free online Personal Quit Plan service. PHE says that this will provide smokers with a suggested combination of support based on their level of tobacco dependency and what quitting support they have used previously.
The personalised service will begin on Thursday, in advance of Stoptober commencing. PHE believes that 60% of the 6.1 million smokers in England would like to quit using tobacco cigarettes and cigars.
PHE’s deputy medical director Dr Jenny Harries added: “There are many different types of stop smoking support available, so it can be difficult for a smoker to know what will work best for them. The important thing is not to be put off trying to quit even if you have not managed to in the past.”
“This year, Stoptober can help you find a combination that could work for you. We predict that thousands of smokers will quit every day over the next 10 years – I urge smokers not to get left behind for the benefit of their health. Join in, find your best way to quit, and start your 28-day journey to becoming smoke-free.”
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH UK), said: “There are almost as many different ways of quitting as there are smokers, but to succeed smokers need motivation. ASH is delighted to see Stoptober is back on TV with a new ad campaign, which will raise awareness and provide valuable additional encouragement for smokers trying to quit with Stoptober.”
Ian Hudspeth, chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “Councils remain committed to helping smokers quit, however this is made all the more difficult by the Government’s reductions to the public health budget, which councils use to fund stop-smoking services. We have long argued that this is a short-term approach which will only compound acute pressures for NHS services further down the line.”
Professor Robert West has said that campaigns like Stoptober provide excellent value for money, and has produced a "significant increase in the quit attempt rate in that specific month compared to other months of the year.”
West lamented that the funding for such campaigns has been drying up and highlighted the resulting drop in spending for Stoptober in the media from £3.1 million in 2015 to £390,000 in 2016.
For those considering switching to vaping, the recent PHE review on electronic cigarettes states:
- vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking and switching completely from smoking to vaping conveys substantial health benefits
- e-cigarettes could be contributing to at least 20,000 successful new quits per year and possibly many more
- e-cigarette use is associated with improved quit success rates over the last year and an accelerated drop in smoking rates across the country
- many thousands of smokers incorrectly believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking; around 40% of smokers have not even tried an e-cigarette
- there is much public misunderstanding about nicotine (less than 10% of adults understand that most of the harms to health from smoking are not caused by nicotine)
- the use of e-cigarettes in the UK has plateaued over the last few years at just under 3 million
- the evidence does not support the concern that e-cigarettes are a route into smoking among young people (youth smoking rates in the UK continue to decline, regular use is rare and is almost entirely confined to those who have smoked)
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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