The theme of this year’s World Tobacco Day (Sunday 31 May 2020) was ‘Protecting Youth from Industry Manipulation’, and with growing evidence showing that smokers are more likely to develop a severe case of COVID-19 if the contract the virus, quitting is more important than ever.
It’s known that there is no safe level of tobacco consumption and its use is a major cause of cardiovascular disease, at least 16 types of cancer, respiratory disease and type 2 diabetes.
So, COVID-19 aside, quitting smoking at any age and time is beneficial to a person’s health.
While Australia has had significant success in reducing smoking over the years – rates have declined significantly over the past two decades from 22.3% in 2001 to 13.8% in 2017 – the Australian Government is hoping to reduce these rates further.
The Australian Government aims to reduce smoking rates to less than 10% by 2025 through the 10-year National Preventive Health Strategy and has committed $31.6 million over four years from 2019-20 to reduce smoking prevalence.
This includes $20 million over three years to develop a new National Tobacco Campaign to encourage smokers to quit.
The campaign will increase people’s understanding of the benefits of quitting smoking, the health impacts of smoking and promote the support tools available to help people quit.
For further help quitting smoking, contact the Quitline on 13 7848 or visit: quit.org.au.