
ROCHESTER, Minn. — The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the majority of the world’s 1 billion smokers want to quit. Though tobacco dependence treatment has the greatest short-term impact on tobacco-related mortality of any intervention, it remains the least-funded and least-implemented tobacco control measure globally.
Health care professionals are crucial to changing this, say the organizers of the Global Tobacco Dependence Treatment Summit 2016, which will take place May 23-24 on Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota. Mayo Clinic’s Nicotine Dependence Center and the Global Bridges Healthcare Alliance are bringing together world public health leaders, researchers, advocates and health care providers to advance culturally relevant treatment of tobacco dependence around the globe and discuss the impact of health care professional advocacy on tobacco control.
Unless action is taken, tobacco use will kill 1 billion people this century, according to WHO. Six years since the adoption of WHO guidelines calling for integration of cessation treatment into tobacco control, only 12 percent of countries have developed comprehensive treatment services. Even so, there are steps health care professionals can take to improve patients’ chances of quitting, including refraining from tobacco use, identifying tobacco users at intake, and offering brief advice.
“Helping people quit tobacco saves lives. As health care professionals, we have a moral responsibility to patients around the world to make tobacco dependence treatment available, accessible and culturally sensitive,” said J. Taylor Hays, M.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center and chair of Global Bridges. “People who want to quit need to know providers are there for them at every step of the journey toward living free from tobacco.”
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Sarah Dick, JPA Health Communications, 202-591-4050, sarah@jpa.com
Kelley Luckstein, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu
Speakers and events at the Global Summit 2016 will include:
For a complete list of speakers, presentations and experiences, go to https://tobaccotreatmentsummit.mayo.edu/speakers/
About Global Bridges
Global Bridges connects and mobilizes an international network of health care professionals and organizations dedicated to advancing effective tobacco dependence treatment and advocating for proven tobacco control policies. Since its inception in 2010, Global Bridges grantees and partners have created culturally relevant training curricula based on established best practices and trained more than 3,600 health care professionals from 63 countries. In partnership with funders, such as Pfizer Independent Grants for Learning and Change, Global Bridges offers competitive grant funding and guidance for evidence-based training. The Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center and the American Cancer Society, founding partners of Global Bridges, provide programmatic support.
Note: WHO’s official smoking statistics and report on the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative “MPOWER” measures for country-level implementation of WHO FCTC guidelines can be accessed on the organization's website.
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About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to clinical practice, education and research, providing expert, whole-person care to everyone who needs healing. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic or https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/.
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