Study busts smoking population myths

Australian National University (ANU) researchers are hoping their latest study will help break down stigma around people who smoke and allow public health messaging to be better targeted.
 
By drawing on Australian Bureau of Statistics survey data, the team was able to use nearly 23,000 responses to provide a more complete picture of the 2.5 million people across the country who smoke each day.
 
Lead author Professor Emily Banks said the research is important, as people who smoke are often stigmatised and stereotyped as uneducated, unemployed and mentally ill – perceptions that are not supported by the survey results.
 
‘These findings should reduce unfair stigma around smoking and support evidence-based tobacco control measures,’ she said.    

‘Smoking remains Australia’s leading cause of premature death and disability, so it’s vital that we better understand who smokes and the reasons why they do.’

While the research found that smoking is more frequent among people living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas and in certain population sub-groups, it suggests that 69% of daily smokers have completed year 12, with the same percentage of working age respondents in paid employment, while 73% have good mental health.
 
Most (65%) live in major cities, and 92% are non-Indigenous, with men more likely to be daily smokers than women (58.8% versus 41.2%)
 
Professor Nick Zwar, Chair of the RACGP’s Smoking Cessation Guidelines’ Expert Advisory Group, told newsGP the study is a ‘useful piece of work’ that helps to counter the hardening hypothesis.
 
‘It shows that on a population level, the idea that … among people who still smoke, a higher prevalence are more dependent or have some other challenge such as mental health, social disadvantage, or something else that’s made it more challenging for them to stop smoking, doesn’t seem to be accurate,’ he said.
 
‘Having said that … it’s a different experience, sometimes, as a GP when you’re providing smoking cessation advice or support, because many of the people in this study wouldn’t come to see their GPs all that often because a lot of them are in good health.
 
‘[Nonetheless], there is still quite a substantial number of people in the community who smoke and don’t have complicated issues, and we would like to be able to help them to quit.’
 
To do so, Professor Zwar says GPs should consistently ask patients abouts their smoking status.
 
‘For example, people who said they’ve quit, sometimes we don’t ask again, and people have relapsed and we don’t know it,’ he said.
 
‘There are people in the general population who would benefit from [smoking cessation] support and don’t necessarily have other more difficult issues, whether it’s mental health or social disadvantage or whatever else.’
 
The ANU research team is also hopeful that the findings will help inform future public health campaigns.
 
‘Effective, relevant communications reflect the lives of people who smoke,’ study co-author Associate Professor Raglan Maddox said.

‘We need both broad messages and specific approaches for priority populations, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, while taking care not to frame it as an issue unique to one particular group.’

And despite the fact that Australian smoking rates have halved since 1991, Professor Zwar believes there is a need to reinvest in tobacco control.
 
‘The problem is not solved, and we need to continue to try to … greatly reduce Australia’s tobacco prevalence,’ he said.
 
‘Even though we’ve made good progress, there’s still a substantial number of Australians who smoke and are at risk of premature death or illness from tobacco-related disease.’

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