Access to robust, evidence-based smoking cessation is essential for improving public health and reducing healthcare costs. Across the U.S. and around the world, cities, states and countries do not provide equal access to nor equal support of the necessary tobacco cessation services. Advocates and policymakers play a crucial role in
How US Healthcare Professionals Can Strengthen Tobacco Cessation Interventions Tobacco kills over 22,000 people every day globally, and over 480,000 people annually in the United States alone,1,2 more than the combined deaths caused by AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides.2 Out of all the American children who
Author: Gabrielle Ballweg, ASH Human Rights Policy and Communications Intern Arguably the most compelling justification for permitting cigarette sales in the U.S. is profit. However, when a U.S. industry inflicts 226.7 billion dollars in U.S. healthcare costs annually – in addition to causing 20% of all U.S. deaths – this
“Smoking isn’t just killing us, it’s bankrupting us,” said Ashli Watts, a spokeswoman with the Chamber of Commerce for Kentucky, where one in four adults uses tobacco, the lung cancer rate is the nation’s highest and related healthcare and lost productivity costs nearly $5 billion a year. “Companies do look
Worldwide, tobacco is responsible for 7 million deaths a year. In the United States, nearly 500,000 people die as a result of smoking each year, and approximately 16 million people are sick as a result of tobacco. But the cost to health and lives are not the only costs that Americans are suffering
