Anti-smoking campaign saved 55,000 lives

Research has shown, a national anti-smoking ads have prompted nearly 200,000 people to give up and should prevent about 55,000 deaths.

Professor Susan Hurley, the author of the new report published online in the international journal Tobacco Control, said: “The first six months of the National Tobacco Campaign (NTC) in 1997 was the most intensive, and costly. At the time the impact of the campaign was closely monitored and it was estimated that about 190,000 Australians quit smoking. Lung cancer, heart attack, stroke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or emphysema, accounted for about 80 per cent of illness and death caused by smoking.

Among the 190,000 people estimated to have quit smoking during the first six months of the campaign alone, almost 55,000 deaths and 57,000 cases of disease would be prevented. The campaign ran nationally from June 1997 until July 2000, and again in 2004. Within four years of the campaign starting, the health care savings had exceeded the cost of the advertisement. Very few health programs save more than they cost, but the NTC did.”

Fiona Sharkie, executive director of Quit Victoria said: “When this campaign was launched 10 years ago it was the first time that smokers really saw real life situations of what happened to their bodies as a result of their habit.”

Ms Sharkie called on Federal and state authority to continue funding anti-smoking ads, because the evidence showed such campaigns were successful.