Prevention Matters

Think about how often you use your mobile phone and how many “apps” you’ve downloaded. Folks promoting health and wellness believe this could be a good way to engage people and to encourage healthy living. But, what do mobile phone users think? Not too much, judging by a recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Only 9 percent of mobile phone users indicated that they use phone apps to help track or manage their health.

Despite low usage now, public health officials remain optimistic that mobile technology is a good way to reach young people, as well as African Americans and Latinos. Like pedometers, scales and journals, mobile apps can assist in tracking food intake, exercise or smoking cessation. They can also provide reminders for medication usage and doctor’s visits. As more mobile applications become available, it will be interesting to see how these tools can assist health decision-making.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/10/20/130703545/for-many-of-us-health-apps-are-just-not-part-of-our-routine


Diane Canova
VP, Policy & Programs
Partnership for Prevention

Partnership for Prevention’s fourth ActionToQuit state summit was held on October 14 in Orlando, Florida. Led by the American Lung Association in Florida, the event brought together 65 organizational representatives, leaders, and advocates committed to saving lives and improving health through tobacco cessation at the one of the newest facilities in Orlando, the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Center at Lake Nona. The Orlando event was unique in that about 190 participants from 27 remote locations across Florida tuned into the summit virtually and participated in workgroups of their own to begin to develop a strategic plan for the state to increase access to tobacco cessation treatments.

The summit continued to take advantage of technology and social media throughout the day, encouraging participants to “tweet” updates from the summit with their Smartphone and to send in questions for presenters by email and text messages. On-site participants were polled on a variety of issues after each presenter using electronic polling keypads which allowed for the results to be displayed for the audience in seconds. These additional features of the Florida summit were definitely value-added and made for increased dialogue and participation.

As noted in the presentation given by Dr. Thomas Brandon, Director of the Tobacco Research & Intervention Program at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, 17.5 percent of adults in Florida are current cigarette smokers. While over a span of 10 years at least 2-3 people die from shark attacks, 10 die from alligator attacks, and 10,000 people are murdered, tobacco use will kill 300,000 individuals.

Jennifer Singleterry, Manger of Cessation Policy at the American Lung Association, pointed out that smoking not only costs Florida thousands of lives each year, but there are also significant economic costs incurred. Each year Florida suffers $4.4 billion in workplace productivity losses; $7.9 billion in costs of premature death; and $7.3 billion in direct healthcare expenditures. These outrages losses, coupled with the prevalence of morbidity and mortality due to tobacco use, continue to make the case for providing a comprehensive cessation benefit in the state of Florida. For every $1.00 spent on providing cessation treatments, Florida has the potential to see an average return of $1.24.

Diane Canova, Vice President of Policy & Programs at Partnership for Prevention provided the presentation on health reform and what it means for tobacco addiction treatment. She stressed that tobacco cessation offers the highest value of all preventive services, receiving the top rating by the National Commission for Prevention Priorities for health impact and cost effectiveness. She also noted the recent expansion of Medicare coverage for cessation counseling to all tobacco users and other key provisions in the Affordable Care Act. The take-away message was that implementation of expanded coverage is key and we must keep tobacco a prominent priority in community prevention to truly drive down the number of tobacco users.

After the morning presenters, summit participants were divided into workgroups to begin making recommendations for the following audiences to ensure that they receive or provide comprehensive tobacco cessation coverage in the state of Florida: 1) healthcare industry; 2) government employees; 3) Medicaid recipients; and 4) businesses. The larger group reconvened at the end of the day to report out on the recommendations and everyone was pleased by the thought and work that had been put into them in such a short amount of time.

The American Lung Association in Florida and its partners will take the next step in the development of the statewide plan by gathering all the information received at the summit and choosing the recommendations that will hopefully lead to all employees in the state having comprehensive coverage. We look forward to seeing Florida’s plan sometime in December and helping them to implement their plan in the upcoming year.


Brandi Robinson
Tobacco Control Program Associate

Partnership for Prevention’s second ActionToQuit state summit was held on September 28 in Buffalo, New York. The event brought together organizational representatives, leaders, and advocates committed to saving lives and improving health through tobacco cessation. The summit was led by the New York State (NYS) Smokers Quitline, which received a grant from Partnership for Prevention to develop a state plan for tobacco cessation.

David Zauche, Senior Program Officer at Partnership for Prevention, provided the keynote address at the Buffalo summit. He stressed that tobacco cessation offers the highest value of all preventive services, receiving the top rating by the National Commission for Prevention Priorities for health impact and cost effectiveness. He noted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that tobacco cessation services be covered benefits for all employees, and he explained how federal health reform will positively impact cessation in the nation.

Currently there are 2.7 million smokers in New York State. Leaders from the state quitline and other agencies and organizations set an ambitious goal of reducing that number by one million by the year 2014. This would entail reducing the adult smoking prevalence from 18% to 12%. Fortunately, most cessation indicators are moving in the right direction in New York.

• There have been steady increases in the past decade in the percentage of smokers receiving assistance from their health care provider
• Similar increases have been seen in the percentage of smokers making a quit attempt
• The NYS Smokers Quitline is heavily promoted, providing free telephone and online cessation services and free medications to thousands of people each year
• Paid media campaigns reinforce the need to quit and cessation centers exist to provide additional help

In a strongly worded letter to President Obama and Members of the US House and Senate, Partnership for Prevention joined key national and state public health leaders in supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) effort to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change. The September 28 correspondence advised US political leaders to “fully support the EPA in fulfilling its responsibilities” and oppose “any efforts to weaken, delay or block the EPA from protecting the public’s health from these risks.”

The letter acknowledges “the threat to public health posed by climate change” and urged support for “measures that will reduce these risks and strengthen the ability of our local, state and federal public health agencies to prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change.”

In addition to Partnership for Prevention, national organizations signing the letter included American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Preventive Medicine, American Lung Association, American Medical Association, APHA, ASTHO, NACCHO, NALBH, Trust for America’s Health and over 100 public health organizations representing 37 states.


E. Ripley Forbes
Director, Government Affairs

September 26, 2010 marked the 10th anniversary of World Heart Day. Organized by the World Heart Federation, including the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, World Heart Day calls attention to the death and disability caused by heart disease and stroke. Most people now understand that cardiovascular disease is the world’s leading cause of death and most people can identify at least some of the contributing risk factors – high cholesterol, high blood pressure, tobacco use. While we can name the threats, we are slower to recognize and embrace the policies and actions to prevent heart disease and stroke. Controlling diabetes, stopping tobacco use, eating more nutritiously and being more physically active are all important ways to help your heart stay healthy.

This year’s World Heart Day focus was workplace wellness. Most working adults spend the majority of their day at work and what we do at work affects our heart health. One of Partnership’s signature programs, Leading by Example (LBE) promotes workplace health through CEO to CEO engagement. Our LBE publications highlight the efforts of leading companies to build and support a healthy workforce.

Make your heart a 365 day project. Incorporate healthier practices while at work and home. Those working virtually or at home aren’t off the hook. Take a walk, put down the candy bar or cigarette and think about other ways to protect your heart during your work day.

For more information on Leading by Example click here, and for worksite health click here.


Diane Canova
VP, Policy and Programs
Partnership for Prevention

The bill introduced in California to require schools to provide free drinking water in eating areas was named the “Best News for Prevention” while the new report showing the high price of obesity was named the “Worst News for Prevention.”

BEST

Bill seeks to add free water to school menus

In many California school cafeterias, there's no free water to drink. Surprised?

"Everyone I talked to says, 'You're kidding,' " said state Sen. Mark Leno (D- San Francisco).

Leno has introduced legislation to change that. His bill requiring schools to offer drinking water at no charge to students has passed the Senate and Assembly and awaits the governor's signature — a fairly sure thing because the governor sponsored the bill.

"As we all know, young people are constantly bombarded by advertisements and pressure from their peers to consume junk beverages that are high in calories and sugar. Yet many students do not have access to free, fresh drinking water at lunchtime," Leno said in material promoting his bill.


WORST

Obesity hurts your wallet and your health


Obesity puts a drag on the wallet as well as health, especially for women.

Doctors have long known that medical bills are higher for the obese, but that's only a portion of the real-life costs.

George Washington University researchers added in things like employee sick days, lost productivity, even the need for extra gasoline — and found the annual cost of being obese is $4,879 for a woman and $2,646 for a man.

That's far more than the cost of being merely overweight — $524 for women and $432 for men, concluded the report being released last Tuesday, which analyzed previously published studies to come up with a total.


The “Best and Worst” awards are announced each week in “Prevention Matters,” the blog of Partnership for Prevention. "Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention. More information is available at http://www.prevent.org/.

Partnership for Prevention’s first ActionToQuit state summit was held on September 21 in Richmond, Virginia. The event brought together some sixty organizational representatives, leaders, and advocates committed to saving lives and improving health through tobacco cessation.

Over one million Virginians are current smokers, and 60% of them attempted to quit in the past year. This decade the smoking rate in the state declined steadily, while the quit attempt rate increased. The tobacco control community has given first priority to tax increases and smoke free public places, and many successes have been realized. But policy and system changes to advance tobacco cessation have not kept pace. Because of this, many people who want to quit have not had access to treatments that have been proven to work.

This summit was an outstanding example of state leaders coming together to solve a problem, in this case a deadly problem. If advocates are serious about significantly decreasing the smoking rate and its corresponding mortality, then change must occur. That’s why discussions centered on: 

• expanding Medicaid coverage in Virginia for tobacco cessation
• working with hospitals and health centers to routinely identify and treat tobacco users 
• urging all employers and private health plans to offer coverage 
• securing additional funding for the Virginia telephone quitline  
• convincing thought leaders and elected officials that cessation treatments are high value, saving lives and money