» Home > (Page 3)

Tag Archives: tobacco

How the tobacco industry targets young people to achieve a new generation of smokers

Friday, May 29th, 2020 | tedla55p | No Comments

Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, Anaru Waa

This year’s World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) focusses on the tobacco industry’s continued targeting of young people, whose addiction to nicotine will help ensure the industry’s on-going profitability. World Smokefree Day’s social media handle #tobaccoexposed reminds us that, despite a new-found interest in ‘unsmoking’ the world, and moving smokers to “reduced harm” products, tobacco companies continue to develop and promote smoked tobacco products that will appeal to young people. In this blog, we explore how tobacco companies have continued to recruit young people to smoked tobacco; we discuss their efforts to infiltrate public health agendas while continuing to innovate with smoked tobacco, and explain why strong policies and industry denormalisation strategies are vital to ensuring young people remain nicotine free.

Continue reading →

Regulating vaping and new nicotine products: Are tobacco companies’ goals aligned with public health objectives?

Friday, March 27th, 2020 | tedla55p | No Comments

Lindsay Robertson1,2, Janet Hoek3, Anna Gilmore1, Richard Edwards 3, Anaru Waa3

1 Tobacco Control Research Group, University of Bath, UK; 2 Dept of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, NZ; 3 Dept of Public Health, University of Otago Wellington, NZ

The public will soon have the opportunity to make submissions on the long-awaited Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill (‘the Bill’) which will regulate vaping products and alternative nicotine delivery systems. In a previous blog, ASPIRE 2025 researchers summarised the strengths and limitations of the Bill, and concluded that it contained several important measures, yet could do more to protect the health of children, young people and non-nicotine users. This blog – intended as a follow-up article to further promote discussion – summarises emerging evidence of British American Tobacco’s ambitious plans for its nicotine products, and highlights the disjunction between tobacco companies’ profit goals and public health objectives.

Continue reading →

Vaping very likely to be improving health in NZ – but how does this compare with other options?

Monday, March 25th, 2019 | tedla55p | No Comments

Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Frederieke Petrović-van der Deen, Dr Cristina Cleghorn, A/Prof Coral Gartner, Prof Tony Blakely

Our just published modelling study suggests that easier access to nicotine via vaping as a replacement for tobacco smoking, will improve the health of the NZ population. The estimated health gain is about the same as 10% per annum tobacco tax increases per year for 15 years, or a national colorectal cancer screening programme. Considering all sources of uncertainty, our study supports cautious liberalisation of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes – as NZ is doing. In this blog we discuss this new study and issues that policy-makers should consider to maximise the potential health gain – and minimise risks.

Continue reading →

What does the EY Tobacco Excise Tax Evaluation Report mean for reaching the Smokefree 2025 Goal?

Thursday, January 24th, 2019 | tedla55p | No Comments

Richard Edwards, Janet Hoek, Anaru Waa – ASPIRE 2025 and University of Otago

This blog comments on the Ernst and Young (EY) report to the Ministry of Health, which evaluated tobacco excise tax increases as a strategy for achieving the Government’s Smokefree 2025 goal [1]. The report’s recommendations, including continuing annual tax excise increases (conditional on positive impacts demonstrated in enhanced monitoring) and implementing comprehensive and multi-faceted complementary measures, are highly consistent with those made in the NZ tobacco control sector’s Achieving Smokefree Aotearoa Plan (ASAP) launched a year previously [2]. The report strengthens the overwhelming case for implementing a Government-led, comprehensive strategy to achieve the Smokefree 2025 goal equitably for all peoples in Aotearoa.

Continue reading →

NZ’s Quitline Service is value-for-money: But how does it compare with other tobacco control actions in a league table?

Monday, August 21st, 2017 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment

Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Nhung Nghiem, Dr Cristina Cleghorn, Dr Frederieke Sanne van der Deen, Prof Tony Blakely

We have just published a journal article on the cost-effectiveness of NZ’s Quitline service (including its associated promotion in the mass media). The study found that this intervention package is likely to be an effective means to generate health gain, address health inequalities and save costs for the NZ health system. But in this blog we also compare the New Zealand Quitline intervention with other tobacco interventions using our just launched BODE3 Interactive League Table, and find that whilst the Quitline is a good thing to do, much more health gain is possible through other tobacco control interventions.

Continue reading →