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Smoking rate in Wales remains unchanged

The Welsh Governments’ National Survey for Wales 2017/18 in its early results has indicated that the reported rate of smoking in the adult population remains 19%, same as that in 2017.

According to Ashley Gould, Public Health Wales’ Lead for Tobacco Control, Consultant in Public Health, while the unchanged prevalence of smoking in Wales is disappointing, the results are somewhat as expected. The survey findings clearly highlight that reducing the prevalence of smoking is a challenging task. They emphasise a strong focus on preventing children and young people from taking up smoking and encouraging more smokers to quit, subsequently reducing the burden of ill health and costs incurring to the NHS.

The ‘Help Me Quit’ programme is helping smokers to get assistance from the NHS and boost their chances of success by 300%. The programme comprises of weekly quit-group meetings, one-to-one sessions, in community venues, pharmacies and hospitals and telephone support.

Public Health Wales plans to continue working with partners for reducing the smoking rate in Wales and strives to achieve the goal of 16% prevalence by 2020. For this to be a success, the number of 15-16-year old children taking up smoking will need to go down by 0.5% each year and the proportion of smokers seeking assistance from NHS needs to go up by 1% each year.


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