Recommendations towards the Tobacco Endgame from international workshop on smoking cessation interventions
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Luke Clancy , Josep M. Suelves , Hans Gilljam , Göran Boethius , Iréne Nilsson-Carlsson , Mette Gry Münchow , Anne Sode Grønbæk , Hanne Tønnesen
About the workshop:
The workshop was held at Clinical Health Promotion Centre, WHO-CC, Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark.
Affiliation of workshop participants:
TobaccoFree Institute, Focas Institute DIT, Dublin, Ireland
Servei de Prevenció I Control del Tabaquisme, Catalonia, Spain
Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Tobaksfakta, Sweden
The National Board of Health and Welfare, Sweden
The Danish Cancer Society, Denmark
The Danish Smoking Cessation Database, Clinical Health Promotion Centre, WHO-CC, Denmark
On December 14 and 15, 2016, an international multidisciplenary panel met in Copenhagen for an internationalworkshop on the process towards the Tobacco Endgame.
The Tobacco Endgame
The WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is an evidence-based treaty which reaffirms the right of all people to the highest standard of health1 through both preventing new smokers to start and supporting current smokers to quit. The WHO FCTC has been ratified by 180 countries including Sweden, Ireland, Spain and Denmark2. The long-term goal of the treaty is to eliminate smoking and has inspired several countries and regions to formulate a strategy to phase out smoking by a specific year. For the same reason the process has earned the name the Tobacco Endgame (TE).
The scope and purpose of the workshop
The focus of the workshop was on supporting current smokers to quit through the best smoking cessation interventions (SCI) – with specific attention to vulnerable groups. The scope and purpose was a comparison of SCI on a national and local level to identify how countries and regions can collaborate internationally to ensure the quality of SCI and moving forward towards TE.
Recommendations - Tobacco Endgame requires effective SCI
No TE if smokers do not quit smoking
Databases are essential for measuring the effect of SCI i.e. quit rates.
Follow up of SCI
This is crucial and shows that compliance is the main factor for success.
Follow-up of unsuccessful quitting attempts can also be used as a recruitment tool for further efforts.
International standards
Monitoring using international standards makes comparisons between countries
and regions doable.
Fast feedback
Giving quick meaningful responses to health professionals on the effect of their SCI is more pro-active than just controlling who is doing what. It also increases the will to register data and to
faster improvement of SCI.
Vulnerable groups
It is crucial to include groups of smokers
at very high risk and/or frequency:
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Pregnant women
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Surgical patients
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Mentally ill patients. Offering them SCI (often for the first time), protecting them and keeping in mind that also most mental patients want to quit.
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Other vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.
Establish a platform for counsellors
It is necessary to learn from each other. Counsellors are often working in very small groups or alone.
References
(1) WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2005). World Health Organisation,
Geneva. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/42811/1/9241591013.pdf?ua=1
(2) WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003). World Health Organisation, Geneva.
https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IX4&chapter=9&clang=_en