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ASSIST (A Stop Smoking in School Trial) is reducing smoking rates among teenagers by 22%. `DECIPHer' Impact Ltd was set up to rollout the ASSIST programme which has been adopted widely in England and Wales with 26 licences being commissioned. The company has achieved £240K annual turnover. As a result, an estimated 1674 young people have not taken up smoking. The Lancet estimates that if ASSIST were implemented across the UK, 40,000 teenagers a year would not start smoking.
ASSIST has been commended by the English and Welsh Governments and recommended in National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines.
The txt2stop trial, led by LSHTM, provided robust evidence that smoking cessation support delivered by text messaging doubles biochemically verified quitting at six months and is highly cost-effective. The research resulted in a new smoking cessation service delivered by text message in England, with over 34,000 smokers having joined the programme by the end of March 2013. The research was noted in international forums and used by WHO in a presentation to member countries; at least four countries have taken steps to roll out their own programmes. The trial findings received exceptionally wide media coverage in 2011.
Smoking is the single most important preventable cause of mortality and inequalities in health in the UK. Tobacco use causes over 100,000 deaths each year in the UK, with around 10,000 of these due to non-smokers' exposure to secondhand smoke. The total cost of smoking to society is estimated to be over £13 billion. The UoE Tobacco Control Research Group's (TCRG) research and knowledge exchange activities have significantly influenced tobacco control policy and practice in the UK (http://www.cphs.mvm.ed.ac.uk/groups/tcrg or http://tinyurl.com/nwxcpnh). More specifically, their research on smoking and non-smoking by young people has influenced smoking prevention and cessation policy at the national level in Scotland and England and at regional/local levels. Their evaluation studies of the national smoke-free legislation in Scotland and England provided important evidence on the legislation's positive public health impact, thereby undermining the case for repealing or diluting the legislation. Their research on reducing smoking in the home has influenced national policy and practice on this issue in Scotland including national mass media campaigns.
We have achieved significant and far reaching impact in the field of public health outcomes, policy and practice. For the first time, age/sex disaggregated estimates of smoking and ex-smoking prevalence were made available for approximately 7700 electoral wards in England and around 1000 postcode sectors for Scotland. The information has influenced national tobacco control policies (e.g. the ban of smoking in enclosed public spaces in England) and has impacted on national smoking-related health inequalities by targeting delivery of cessation services where they are most needed. Findings have also informed anti-smoking campaigns led by health authorities, charities and pressure groups.
There is no `magic bullet' for helping intractable smokers to quit. Rather, the story of this research is one of multiple studies that have built the knowledge base incrementally, allowing Professor of Clinical Psychology Peter Hajek and his team at the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine to produce a targeted, evidence-based model of a specialist treatment that has fed directly into the establishment of the NHS smoking cessation service (NHS-SSS) and national smoking cessation policy (including NICE guidance), and changed clinical practice. The NHS-SSS treats 800,000 smokers per year. The approach is influential globally and has now been used in treating several million smokers and preventing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths.
Research, policy development, evaluation and advocacy work at The University of Nottingham has achieved significant impact in helping to prevent the harm to health caused by smoking, which is the largest avoidable cause of death and disability, and of social inequalities in health, in the UK. This impact has been achieved through contributions in two areas of prevention: (1) conventional population- and individual-level interventions to prevent smoking uptake and promote smoking cessation; and (2) novel population-level measures to encourage substitution of smoked tobacco with alternative, low hazard nicotine products as a harm reduction strategy.
Research carried out by Professor Susan Michie and colleagues led to the establishment of the NHS Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) in 2009 to improve the quality of national stop smoking service provision. The team won the Department of Health contract to form the NCSCT which has led to important quality improvements as demonstrated by increases in knowledge and skills of practitioners, and improvements in success rates. It is estimated that to date the NCSCT has been responsible for an additional 7,500 smokers stopping long-term, saving an estimated 6,500 life years at an incremental cost of less than £500 per life year gained.
Ground-breaking experimental research at the University of Bristol assessing the effectiveness of standardised tobacco packaging legislation has been strongly influencing international tobacco policy and legislation since 2011. Work by scientists in the School of Experimental Psychology was the first to show, using direct, objective measures, that standardised tobacco packaging modifies relevant behaviours. Australia became the first country in the world to implement standardised packaging legislation in 2012 after reviewing the University of Bristol research in their High Court in response to legal challenges from the tobacco industry. That same year, the European Commission's update of the Tobacco Products Directive cited the same University of Bristol research to support the claim that standardised packaging would strengthen the effectiveness of graphic health warnings on tobacco products. The UK government has also used the University of Bristol research to inform the consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco products.
Smoke-free laws are public policies that prohibit tobacco smoking in workplaces and other public spaces. Since the end of March 2006, smoking has been prohibited by law in all enclosed public spaces throughout Scotland, with the specific aim of protecting non-smokers from the effects of second-hand smoke. Studies led by the University of Glasgow have provided the most robust available evidence that smoke-free laws have a significant impact on rates of heart disease, childhood asthma, complications in pregnancy, and stroke. This evidence has been used to support policy debate and decision making in Scotland, the rest of the UK, and around the world, providing guidance for other countries to implement similar legislation. This research has also provided a focal point for an extended and high profile global public debate over smoking legislation, and underpins health advice and campaigns published by the World Health Organization (WHO), World Heart Federation and other international bodies.