Prevention Matters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released the report Tobacco Control State Highlights 2010, which provides tobacco control programs and decision-makers with state-specific data regarding proven, high-impact tobacco strategies. The report aims to address the public health impact of smoking and call attention to the urgent need to end the tobacco use epidemic.

Tobacco Control State Highlights 2010 provides state-specific data for a number of indicators including prevalence of tobacco use; Medicaid coverage for cessation counseling and medications; state retail environment tobacco licensure laws; and state funding for tobacco control. The indicators that were selected for this report are considered important and timely because they are closely aligned with high-impact program and policy recommendations from CDC’s Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control, 2007 and MPOWER, the World Health Organization’s framework for reducing tobacco use globally.

Key information provided by the report includes:

• There are currently 24 states and D.C. that have passed comprehensive smoke-free laws
• In 2007, seven states (Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania) provided insurance coverage to Medicaid enrollees for all FDA-approved medicines and counseling to quit smoking.
• Six states (Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nebraska, and Tennessee) had no cessation coverage for their Medicaid population
• Combined interventions – increasing the price of cigarettes, implementing smoke-free policies, implementing mass media advertising campaigns, reducing tobacco advertising and promotion, controlling access to tobacco products, and promoting and assisting smokers to quit – are proven to significantly reduce smoking.

According to CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. "Smokefree laws, hard-hitting ads, and higher cigarette prices are among our strongest weapons in this fight against tobacco use. We must redouble efforts to bring down smoking rates, prevent suffering and premature death, and cut health care costs by reducing smoking."

In the hopes of helping states take steps toward permanent change in coverage, access, and utilization of tobacco cessation treatments, Partnership for Prevention has awarded six ACTTION State Grants for the implementation of innovative strategies to increase access to treatment. Funds are to be used primarily for the development of state alliances and the creation of strategic plans. The projects will have a range of focuses including employer groups, health care systems, the uninsured, and the behavioral health/substance abuse populations.

The Partnership for Prevention ACTTION Grantee States are:

• Colorado - Cessation Coverage/Treatment for Colorado’s Uninsured
• Florida - Tobacco Cessation Summit & Action Plan
• Nevada - Increasing Cessation Access for All Nevadans
• New England - New England Partnership for Smoking Cessation Policy
• New York – New York State Access to Tobacco Use Treatment Strategic Planning Project
• Virginia - Virginia Partnership for Tobacco Use Cessation

Brandi Robinson
Tobacco Control Program Associate
Partnership for Prevention

In a wide-ranging interview (“Michelle Obama: No longer a 'caricature”) published today in Politico, the First Lady “addressed a doctors’ report that the president is still smoking, saying he has found it difficult to quit amid the rigors of the presidency.”

“What the president struggles with is what every smoker struggles with, it’s a difficult habit to break. It’s understandable that he struggles with it. Do I want him to stop completely? Absolutely. And I will push him to do so, but it’s a process,” Michelle Obama said.

“I’ve never been a smoker so I can’t relate, but people who’ve smoked say like anything, you have dips and valleys, and to try to quit smoking in one of the most stressful times of the nation’s history is sort of like, you know, OK, he’s going to struggle a little bit. This may be the year he’ll struggle,” she said.

We know that quitting smoking is tough work. It takes persistence. That is why Partnership for Prevention and its ACTTION initiative are working to assure that health reform continues to include coverage and access to comprehensive smoking cessation services. But, no less important to successfully quitting, is having the kind of supportive family and workplace environment that is available to the President. I’m not worried about the President. With Michele in his corner he’ll get there.

Posted by:
Ripley Forbes
Director, Government Affairs, Partnership for Prevention

At the recent health summit in Washington, President Obama repeatedly emphasized his commitment to pass meaningful health reform. Despite strong opposition from Republicans in Congress, President Obama is showing the mettle he demonstrated throughout the 2008 campaign. He isn’t giving up and he won’t back down. His commitment to insurance reform and extending high quality health coverage, including access to vital clinical preventive services to millions of uninsured Americans shows courage and character.

But the issue of smoking is one where we value quitters. According to press reports President Obama’s recent physical revealed that he continues to struggle to quit smoking. Most smokers have trouble quitting tobacco so the President’s situation is not unusual. It is ironic that the President who has done so much to protect children from tobacco, and through health reform, increase the availability of tobacco cessation therapies, would struggle to win his personal cessation campaign. But Obama is human and difficulty quitting tobacco is an all too common experience among the millions of smokers who try to quit each year.

Writing in the March 1st Christian Science Monitor, Ron Scherer notes that “anti-smoking advocates view the president’s cigarette struggles not so much as a setback, but rather as an opportunity to try to get more Americans to quit. And they place more importance on his desire to snuff out his tobacco usage than on his success in those efforts.”

Now that’s something we should all be able to agree with. That the President has struggled to quit smoking underscores why it is so important that insurance plans, employers, friends and family members do all they can to support and encourage smokers seeking to quit what is all too often a lifelong and life threatening addiction.

A CBS TV News Healthwatch segment (“Up in Smoke”) added important commentary from medical correspondent and physician Jennifer Ashton. Dr. Ashton cautioned that most former smokers find success only after trying to quit multiple times. She urged that smokers take advantage of available treatments including counseling, OTC nicotine replacement products and prescription medications. Ashton said the decision to quit smoking is really “a life or death issue and the single most important thing you can do for your health.”

Good advice for the public…and for our President.

Posted by:
Ripley Forbes
Director, Government Affairs, Partnership for Prevention