Press Article: General Lifestyle Survey 2008 Published Today: North East smoking at record low but plenty still to do 28/01/10
General Lifestyle Survey 2008 Published Today: North East smoking at record low but plenty still to do 28/01/10
We are really pleased to see that all the hard work across so many different partners and agencies is continuing to pay off as the North East is one of only two out of the nine English SHA regions to see a fall in prevalence in 2008 (the year after smokefree was introduced).
Adult smoking rates in the North East are now down to the lowest ever – 21% - the same as the national average.
This is a remarkable drop of 8% since 2005, the year the multi-agency comprehensive Fresh Programme was launched. Interestingly we also have the lowest regional smoking rates in males (17%) in the country now, but still some work to go with female smoking levels which aren’t going down as fast (23%) and we need to have a good investigation as to why this is the case.
Today’s report is at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/GLF08/GLFSmoking&DrinkingAmongAdults2008.pdf
The regional smoking prevalence data is contained within Table 1.11 on pg 26 of the report
For your information, the long awaited National Tobacco Strategy for England will be launched by the Secretary of State for Health on Monday 1st February and we will send you the link and our release as soon as we can. Following this we will be starting the development and consultation of a bold and ambitious ten year Regional Tobacco Strategy.
Clearly though there is no room for complacency and smoking will remain our biggest killer for sometime to come and we must keep up the hard work and focus and build on this great success to ‘make smoking history for our children’.
Adult smoking rates in the North East are now down to the lowest ever – 21% - the same as the national average.
This is a remarkable drop of 8% since 2005, the year the multi-agency comprehensive Fresh Programme was launched. Interestingly we also have the lowest regional smoking rates in males (17%) in the country now, but still some work to go with female smoking levels which aren’t going down as fast (23%) and we need to have a good investigation as to why this is the case.
Today’s report is at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/GLF08/GLFSmoking&DrinkingAmongAdults2008.pdf
The regional smoking prevalence data is contained within Table 1.11 on pg 26 of the report
For your information, the long awaited National Tobacco Strategy for England will be launched by the Secretary of State for Health on Monday 1st February and we will send you the link and our release as soon as we can. Following this we will be starting the development and consultation of a bold and ambitious ten year Regional Tobacco Strategy.
Clearly though there is no room for complacency and smoking will remain our biggest killer for sometime to come and we must keep up the hard work and focus and build on this great success to ‘make smoking history for our children’.