A UK-BASED tobacco harm reduction (THR) expert has called for the need to implement THR strategies focusing on behaviours of smokers and the reasons they quit to ensure all smokers receive the support they need during their quit journey.
Speaking at the recent virtual e-cigarette summit in the United Kingdom (UK), Dr Debbie Robson, Senior Lecturer in Tobacco Harm Reduction, National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London said such evaluations are necessary to ensure THR strategies encourage a larger number of smokers to quit, as countries around the world work to reduce their smoking prevalence down to 5% or less.
In her presentation, Dr Robson shared insights from the latest University College London’s Smoking Toolkit, which revealed that 37% smokers in England tried to quit in a year, but only nine out of 100 smokers were successful.
“This means that 91 out of 100 smokers either could not or did not want to quit. Tobacco treatment services are really good for those nine people who managed to stop smoking, but what about the 91 out of 100 smokers who couldn’t?” she commented.
“We need to ensure these groups who could not quit are not left smoking in the next decade. We really have to address the challenges and maximise opportunities in THR for these groups, and I believe we have the knowledge, skills and resources to do this.”
In essence, Dr Robson refers to the THR strategy of providing tobacco users who are unwilling or unable to quit to switch to less harmful nicotine-containing products. These include less harmful alternatives such as vape.
In her presentation, Dr Robson further cited a qualitative study that was carried out to evaluate the success of THR approach for people experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic in London.
As part of this study, 5,000 homeless people in London were given hotel rooms.
The hotels were stocked with vape starter kits and other quit aids to try and minimise smoking and risky smoking behaviours (such as leaving the hotel to smoke and congregating in smoking areas), nicotine withdrawal symptoms and fire risks.
Many of them from the study (five in 10), quit smoking and continued to vape afterwards.
However, when analysing results, the researchers also looked beyond successful quit rates and studied the reasons why those who quit ultimately did so.
Many of those homeless people who quit smoking cited that the main reasons included feeling less embarrassment, reduced stigma, improved respiratory health and saving money.
According to the presentation, insights like these are important in shaping future smoking cessation programmes for other homeless communities in UK and beyond.
For Malaysia, findings from studies like these are vital as THR is still at a nascent stage and discussions on regulations are ongoing. To ensure a large percentage of smokers are incentivised to switch, regulations must be people-focused.
This means vape products must be accessible to smokers and its benefits must be communicated with this population. Further, vape products must be priced lower than traditional cigarettes. – Dec 31, 2021
