Thousands of households in Cornwall could be lifted out of poverty if they quit smoking
That is according to public health officials in Cornwall
Thousands of households in Cornwall could be lifted out of poverty if they stopped smoking according to public health officials.
Smokefree Cornwall has published its latest annual report which shows that smoking costs Cornwall £117.3million a year.
And officials said that 24% of households with a smoker are living in poverty and if they quit then more than 3,000 households would be lifted out of poverty.
The shocking figures were revealed in a presentation given to the Cornwall Council health and wellbeing board which met this morning.
Gareth Walsh, public health practitioner, explained the impact that smoking has in Cornwall on both the health of residents and the public purse.
He explained that smokers in Cornwall spend around £84.7m on tobacco products every year which equates to around £2,050 per smoker.
Of that expenditure £67.8m is taken by the exchequer in tobacco duty. However due to the cost to society the net cost in Cornwall is £49.6m.
Mr Walsh said that the statistics, provided by ASH, also provided information about households with smokers.
He said: “24% of households with a smoker fall below the poverty line in Cornwall. If those smokers quit over 3,000 households in Cornwall would be elevated out of poverty.”
The health and wellbeing board also heard that more people in Cornwall are smokers than the south west and the rest of the country – 15.2% of adults in Cornwall smoke compared to 14% across the wider south west and 13.9% in England.
Surveys have also found that routine and manual workers in Cornwall are two-and-a-half times more likely to smoke than those in other jobs with 30.5% of them smokers.
Smokefree Cornwall says that every year more than 900 deaths in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are caused by smoking and that there are currently 63,000 smokers in Cornwall.
The health and wellbeing board also heard that Cornwall has a higher than average number of young smokers than elsewhere.
Smokefree Cornwall has set a number of targets which it wants to achieve by the end of 2022:
Reduce the number of 15-year-olds regularly smoking from 8% to 3% or less
Reduce the prevalence of smoking in pregnancy from 10.7% to 6% or less
Reduce smoking prevalence in adults from 15.5% to 12% or less
These are part of the four main priorities for the group in its plan for the next three years:
Protect babies and children from tobacco exposure and reduce the uptake of smoking among young people
Support people to stop smoking, particularly priority populations with the highest smoking rates
Work with primary and secondary care to reduce patients’ smoking prevalence
Promote compliance with tobacco legislation and stop the promotion of tobacco
Rache Wrigglesworth, Cornwall’s director of public health, said: “We are still seeing that high level of smoking prevalence in Cornwall, Smoking remains one of our top priorities.”
She said that the costs of smoking were not just for the health and care sector but for the whole of society.
And she said that while the rates of smoking among young people were lower than previous years they were still high compared to other areas.
Health and wellbeing board member Chris Blong from NHS Kernow said that he was surprised by some of the figures quoted.
He said: “I was quite shocked by the figures that you can take several thousand families out of poverty by stopping smoking, that is a staggering figure.”