Smoking cessation underfunded

MADISON, Wis. -- People who quit smoking are happier and more satisfied with their health, compared to those who smoke, U.S. researchers say.


Dr. Megan Piper of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health said smokers hold strong beliefs about how stopping smoking will reduce their quality of life.


Piper and colleagues assessed overall quality of life, health-related quality of life, positive vs. negative emotions, relationship satisfaction and occurrence of stressors -- among 1,504 smokers taking part in a U.S. smoking cessation trial. Smoking status and quality of life were assessed at both one year and three years post-smoking cessation.


Quality of life measures included health, self-regard, philosophy of life, standard of living, work, recreation, learning, creativity, social service, love relationship, friendships, relationships with children, relationships with relatives, home, neighborhood and community.


The state loses some “quit-friendly” points with the lack of funding for tobacco-control programs. A year ago, Tennessee ranked dead last in dollars committed to funding tobacco-control programs, but “improved” to 44th in the 2011 report, which measures whether a state meets the recommended funding levels for tobacco prevention programs set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tennessee is expected to spend about $200,000 in fiscal year 2012, or 0.3 percent of the recommended amount for prevention programs, while smoking-related health-care costs registered $2.16 billion.


Frankly, Tennessee must do more to educate and provide services for people to quit, considering that 20 percent of all adults are daily smokers and, even more alarming, there are 7,600 teen-agers who start smoking each year.


Tobacco-control advocates know that cessation programs work. That’s why we are going to be talking to both federal and state officials about comprehensive cessation programs as part of “essential benefit” that must be in any insurance plan sold through the state health insurance exchange when health-care reform begins in 2014.


Despite legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, the law mandates that the essential benefit for each exchange plan sold include the benefits “typical” in employer-sponsored plans. That should include everything from prenatal care to smoking cessation to a prescription drug benefit that includes branded and generic medications, as well as access to new health innovations.


That is a “quit-friendly” environment that we can all live with.