United States: Too few smokers have access to information about quitting

The Surgeon General, Director General of Health in the United States, Doctor Jerome Adams, sounded the alarm this Thursday, January 23: even if people know that tobacco is dangerous for health, too many smokers are not systematically encouraged by their doctor to start the process of quitting smoking. In a new report The Surgeon General points out that there are effective treatments for quitting. But "Forty percent of smokers are not being encouraged to quit," Dr. Adams said in an interview. "That's a shocking statistic to me, and it's a little embarrassing as a health care professional."

That finding comes from a 2015 national health survey that was included in the 700-page report released Thursday: “Four in nine adult cigarette smokers who visited a health care professional in the past year did not receive advice to quit smoking,” the report noted. Vulnerable populations in particular are not getting the help they need to quit. Dr. Adams recommended that doctors and public health officials pay more attention to offering quit assistance to gay and transgender people, Native Americans, people with mental health conditions and several other groups with high smoking rates.The main takeaway message from this report is that far too many people who want to quit smoking do not have access to treatments that are proven to be effective.".

Public health stakeholders welcomed the report. Chris Bostic, deputy director of policy at Action on Smoking & Health in the United States, said: " I believe that doctors, like society in general, restrict access to smoking cessation because they believe that smokers have made their own choice by "deciding" to smoke, and that it is up to them to initiate the request for help to stop.However, a majority of smokers became addicted during adolescence when they had little or no awareness of the risks.