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Indigenous smoking - what works

Indigenous smoking - what works

A landmark series of 15 scientific papers published last month illustrate how reducing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smoking is achievable, how this is happening now, and why continued government investment is justified.

Menzies Associate Professor David Thomas leader of the national Talking about the Smokes research project explains that high numbers of Indigenous smokers want to quit, have made a quit attempt in the last year, live in smoke-free homes, and work in smoke-free workplaces. 

“Most of our participants reported knowing about the most harmful health effects of smoking and hold negative attitudes towards smoking which gives us great confidence that messages and advice about quitting will be welcomed and understood,” A/Professor Thomas said.

“Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services are now all smoke-free and have increased their focus on tobacco control.  We found that a greater proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smokers recalled being advised to quit by a health professional in the past year than of a similar sample of all Australian smokers,” he said.  “But still more can be done to help people to stay quit once they have tried to quit.”

The national prevalence of daily smoking in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population is falling, but at 42% is still 2.6 times that of other Australians.  Smoking causes one-sixth of the health gap and one-fifth of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths.

“Our new research evidence justifies continued significant government investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tobacco control.  We found that many of the different types of tobacco control activities were associated with people wanting to quit and making quit attempts.”

This included not only activities funded by the Australian Government’s Tackling Indigenous Smoking Program but also mainstream tobacco control activities (advertising campaigns, pack warnings and plain packaging, and smoke-free regulation) and activities already incorporated into routine health care (brief advice and individual cessation support).


Key facts and figures from Talking about the Smokes: 1 June 2015

The Talking about the Smokes team interviewed a nationally representative sample of 2,522 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from 35 locations, including 1,643 smokers (1,392 daily smokers).

Quitting:

 

Second-hand smoke:

 

Knowledge of the health effects of smoking and second-hand smoke:

 

Attitudes and social norms about smoking:

 

Anti-tobacco health information:

 

 Support to quit:

 

These results are from the baseline survey conducted from April 2012 to October 2013.  The Talking about the Smokes team are now analysing results from follow-up surveys conducted a year later.