Faced with healthcare costs related to smoking escalating, and the decade-long decline in smoking rates coming to a halt, employers need to be proactive in helping their workers stop smoking. On November 15, The American Cancer Society will celebrate the 31st annual Great American Smokeout --- a great time for employers to encourage their smoking employees to give up smoking for 24 hours in the hope that this head start will help them kick the habit.
A recent survey of employers by the National Business Group on Health reports that a majority of employers ranked smoking as one of the greatest priority health issues facing their companies, second only to obesity, but only two percent offer the comprehensive benefit recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“A great place for employers to start is their Employee Assistance Program. EAPs have always focused on addiction and substance abuse issues. And, according to the American Cancer Society, smoking is one of the greatest addictions there is --- calling it as addictive as heroin or cocaine,” says Gus Stieber, National Sales Director of Bensinger, DuPont & Associates. “As with other addictions, kicking the habit is more than breaking the physical addiction to nicotine. It also must address the social and psychological issues that prompt people to smoke. This is why a combination like a structured support group and nicotine patch/gum is proven to be highly effective.”
Employers that need more urging to help their workers quit smoking should consider these alarming statistics:
· Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality worldwide. Smoking-related diseases claim an estimated 438,000 American lives each year. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
· Smoking costs the United States over $167 billion each year in health-care costs including $92 billion in mortality-related productivity losses, $75 billion in direct medical expenditures or an average of $3,702 per adult smoker. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
· In 2005, an estimated 45.1 million, or 21.0 percent of adults were current smokers. The annual prevalence of smoking has declined 40 percent between 1965 and 1990, but has been unchanged virtually thereafter. (National Health Interview Survey. Vital and Health Statistics. Series 10, No. 232, Oct. 4, 2006)
· Workplaces nationwide are going smoke-free to provide clean indoor air and protect employees from the life-threatening effects of secondhand smoke. Nearly 70 percent of the U.S. workforce worked under a smoke free policy in 1999, but the percentage of workers protected varies by state, ranging from a high of 83.9 percent in Utah and 81.2 percent in Maryland to 48.7% in Nevada. (Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine 2001; 43:680-686).
· In 2005, an estimated 46.1 million adults were former smokers. Of the current 45.1 million smokers, 42.5 percent of current smokers had stopped smoking at least 1 day in the preceding year because they were trying to quit smoking completely. (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report October 2005.)
Bensinger, DuPont & Associates provides onsite workplace smoking cessation programs to customers as part of a full services EAP program. These programs can be customized to meet the individual needs of each workplace.
Bensinger, DuPont & Associates is a privately owned professional services company that is dedicated to promoting healthy outcomes for employees, the workplace, individuals and their families through a wide range of consultation, training and counseling services.
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