HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

Health professionals have the greatest potential of any group in society to promote the reduction of tobacco use, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Yet, there is still a misperception of nicotine’s harms among health-care professionals, which is not in the best interest of their patients.

QUITTING TOBACCO

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports: “Among smokers who are aware of the dangers of tobacco, most want to quit. Counselling and medication can more than double a tobacco user's chance of successfully quitting. Currently however, only 23 countries provide comprehensive cessation services with full or partial cost-coverage to assist tobacco users to quit. This represents just 32% of the world's population.”

Studies show that few people understand the specific health risks of tobacco, which include lung cancer, heart disease and stroke. Concise advice from health professionals can increase quitting success rates by up to 30%, while intensive advice increases the chance of quitting by 84%.

Under WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), countries are mandated to treat tobacco use and dependence. WHO provides capacity building and training packages to help governments establish or strengthen their national tobacco cessation systems. These include:

Integrating brief tobacco interventions into their primary care systems;
Developing national toll-free quit lines; and
Initiating m-Cessation projects.

Offering help to quit is also one of the five key interventions in the MPOWER package of technical measures and resources, which the WHO introduced in 2007.