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** 18 December 2023
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** UK
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** Hospital admissions due to smoking up nearly 5% last year, NHS data shows (#3)
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** How youth vaping hit UK and became an epidemic (#1)
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** Demonising vaping is prompting young people to switch to tobacco as mixed messaging suggests they are equally as dangerous, experts warn (#2)
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** Opinion: Of course the uptick in smoking is about vaping and tobacco, but it’s also about loneliness (#4)
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** UK
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** Hospital admissions due to smoking up nearly 5% last year, NHS data shows

Smoking-related hospital admissions in England increased by nearly 5% in 2022-23, compared to the previous year, but remain lower than before the Covid pandemic.
Latest statistics from NHS England show that in 2022-23 there were an estimated 408,700 hospital admissions due to smoking, a rise from 389,800 in 2021-22 (an increase of 4.8%).

The newly published figures in NHS England’s Statistics on Public Health, 2023 report also cover 2020-21, when there were 314,100 admissions attributed to smoking, which was consistent with fewer hospital admissions overall that year.

Around one in six (16%) of all hospital admissions for respiratory diseases in 2022-23 were estimated to be related to smoking, while it also caused 8% of all admissions for cancers and 7% of admissions for cardiovascular diseases.

Matt Fagg, NHS England’s Director for Prevention and Long-Term Conditions, said: “We have seen great progress in prevention and tackling smoking-related ill health in recent years, with smoking rates falling significantly in the UK and remaining below most of our peers internationally, but it is clear there is still more to do to help save and improve more lives.

“Quitting smoking is the best way to improve health and to prevent over 50 serious smoking-related illnesses from developing, but we know it can be very difficult to overcome an addiction. That is why the NHS is rolling out dedicated support for patients in hospital to tackle their tobacco dependency, in addition to traditional Stop Smoking Services.

“Being in hospital is a significant event in someone’s life and people can be more open to making healthier choices. The tobacco dependence treatment offered by the NHS can significantly improve the health and wellbeing of the person smoking and their family.”

Hazel Cheeseman, Deputy Chief Executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said: “Smoking is the leading cause of premature death responsible for half the difference in life expectancy between the most and least advantaged in society.
“The provision of tobacco dependence treatment by the NHS is playing a vital role in improving the health and wellbeing of the nation and reducing health inequalities across society.

“When sick smokers quit they improve both their quality and length of life and free up NHS capacity at a time when, more than ever, this is sorely needed.”

Source: About Manchester, December 17, 2023
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** Find the new Public Health Statistics here ([link removed])
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Read Here ([link removed])


** How youth vaping hit UK and became an epidemic

Claims that more should have been done to prevent the rise in youth smoking come in the wake of a Times investigation which revealed that tobacco giants are linked to efforts to promote vaping in the UK and block regulations aimed at protecting children.

The government is considering what action it will take to tackle youth vaping after a consultation closed earlier this month. This could mean the banning of disposable vapes, or other measures such as limiting flavours, minimum pricing and restrictions on packaging and displays.

The Conservative MP Neil O’Brien, who was public health minister until last month’s reshuffle, said there was a “huge push from the industry to fight against regulation”.
He said: “The number of children vaping has absolutely exploded with bad consequences in our schools. We need to do big things to both enable enforcement and reduce demand. Government is quite right to be looking at flavours, packaging, marketing, point of sale controls.”

Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that the debate about e-cigarettes and public health was initially dominated by addiction specialists who failed to take into account the “broader population perspective” of the possible consequences for non-smokers.

Whilst most experts agree that vaping is less harmful than smoking, as the UK encouraged smokers to try vaping, health experts were cognisant of the risk of non-smokers, especially children, taking up the habit.

Sold at pocket money prices of no more than £4 or £5 a vape, with flavours such as gummy bear and bubblegum candy, disposable vapes have proved hugely popular in the UK. Clinicians say they are deliberately designed to be attractive to children.

McNeill, a professor of tobacco addiction at King’s College London said academics had always been monitoring the use of vapes by children and “as soon as we saw an uptick we were flagging that to government”.

She criticised the “ridiculously cheap price and easily availability” of disposable vapes and said there were “a few things that the government could do pretty quickly to nip [youth vaping in the bud, and I would be the first to say they’re not doing what they should be doing”.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Vaping is rightly used by adults as a tool to quit smoking, but the health advice is clear: if you don’t smoke, don’t vape — and children should never vape. That’s precisely why we have already taken action and consulted on ways to reduce the appeal and availability of vapes to children and young people.’’

“Research shows consumer vapes are the most effective approach to quitting smoking in England, leading to an estimated 50,000 more people quitting every year. We are also funding a world-first ‘swap to stop’ scheme to offer a million adult smokers across England a free vaping starter kit.”

Source: The Times, 17 December 2023
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** See Also: ASH Mythbuster: Addressing Common Myths about Vaping ([link removed]) and ASH response to the call for evidence on youth vaping ([link removed])
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Read Here ([link removed])


** Demonising vaping is prompting young people to switch to tobacco as mixed messaging suggests they are equally as dangerous, experts warn

Scare stories and misinformation about the harms of vaping could be triggering a rise in young people smoking, experts have warned.

Last week a report revealed that a decades-long decline in the number of smokers in England had flatlined since the Covid pandemic. Researchers suggested this was likely due to more young people starting to smoke.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health told this newspaper that she believes misinformation about the dangers of vapes is partly to blame. “All the negative press around vaping hasn't helped," she said. "Suggestions that vapes need to be in plain packaging, branded with health warnings and kept out of sight, like tobacco, just give the impression that both are equally harmful when that's not the case.”

Research suggests one in five UK children in 2023 have tried a vape, a 30 per cent increase on last year. But experts say demonising vaping is likely to increase the number of smokers, not reduce it.

Dr Sarah Jackson, a behavioural science expert at University College London and lead author of the latest report into UK smoking figures, also said that “inaccurate” media headlines about the risks of vaping were a possible reason why more young people were taking up smoking. “People now think that vaping is more harmful than smoking, which is wrong,” she said.

Last year, a King's College London report found that vaping poses a “small fraction of the health risks of smoking' in the short-to-medium term.”

“There are some toxic chemicals present in vapes which have been linked to long-term health problems but the level is significantly lower than in cigarettes," says Dr Jackson. "We don't want people to needlessly take up vaping, but getting people who smoke to switch to vapes would improve the health of thousands.”

Source: Daily Mail, 16 December 2023
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** See also: Have there been sustained impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on trends in smoking prevalence, uptake, quitting, use of treatment, and relapse? A monthly population study in England, 2017–2022 ([link removed])
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Read Here ([link removed])


** Opinion: Of course the uptick in smoking is about vaping and tobacco, but it’s also about loneliness

Writing in the Guardian, Coco Khan cites recent reports that the pandemic saw the first time that declining smoking rates had flat lined in decades- rates fell by just 0.3% a year during the pandemic, compared to 5% each year before.

Khan investigates the reasons behind this, interestingly it wasn’t that people were no longer quitting, but instead, the pandemic years saw people take up smoking or those long abstinent relapsing. Many of those taking up smoking were middle class and young people.

Khan questions why there might be an increase of young people taking up smoking, she considers the impact of headlines warning of the dangers of vapes nudging young people to believe they are as dangerous as smoking.

Meanwhile, middleclass people who are more likely to be have been working from home during the pandemic which may have made quitting less pertinent to them compared to working class smokers who perhaps faced job insecurity or working in public facing sectors where they faced higher exposure to covid, driving home the health impacts of smoking.

However, the article suggests a further reason for the uptake of smoking in young people and those working from home- loneliness. Isolated from friends and colleagues, Khan suggests that people turned to cigarettes to "decompress". Khan also suggests that when surrounded by people once more, smoking and the actions that come with it, such as asking for a lighter, can be an inroad into conversation and connection.

Source: The Guardian, 18 December 2023
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** See also: Have there been sustained impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on trends in smoking prevalence, uptake, quitting, use of treatment, and relapse? A monthly population study in England, 2017–2022 ([link removed])
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Read Here ([link removed])
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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