Wednesday, April 25, 2001

Tobacco use responsible for one in six deaths in Georgia

In Georgia, tobacco use is not only responsible for about 87 percent of all lung cancer cases, but it is also associated with coronary heart disease and stroke.

Each year, $146 million is spent on tobacco advertising in Georgia and $250 million by Medicaid for treatment of smoking-related illnesses. The effect tobacco has on the physical and financial well-being of Georgians is the topic of the "Smoking Related Illnesses" report recently released by the Georgia Hospital Association.

The report is the sixth in a series of seven reports created by GHA's statewide Partnership for Health and Accountability that underline Georgia's biggest health challenges. The reports were created to increase public awareness of these issues and bring attention by state legislators and policy makers toward improving community health.

The following are a few findings included in the report:

An estimated 48 million adults in the United States smoke cigarettes, including 24 percent of Georgia adults.

Smoking is responsible for more deaths than AIDS, alcohol, motor vehicle accidents, homicide, drugs and suicide combined.

Georgians who die as a result of their smoking habits lose an average of 15 years of life.

Out of $1.2 billion in direct health care costs for the treatment of smoking-related illnesses, $840 million comes directly from Georgia residents' tax dollars.

An estimated 30,000 Georgia children between ages 10 and 13 begin to smoke every year. In 1999, 43 percent of Georgia sixth-graders, 57 percent of seventh-graders and 65 percent of eighth-graders had reported that they had used tobacco products in their lifetimes.

Tobacco use is not only a major cause of heart disease (threefold increase in risk of heart attack), bronchitis, emphysema, stroke, and cancers of the lung, larynx, pharynx and esophagus, but is also a contributing factor to cancers of the bladder, pancreas, cervix and kidneys.

"We need to educate children as early as possible to let them know the dangers of smoking and make the education related to their everyday life," said Rana Bayakly with the Department of Human Resources Cancer Control Division. "Children begin smoking as early as 10 years of age, so I would start the education as early as elementary school."

Preventing the problem of tobacco use before it starts would save Georgia billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of lives. Due to antismoking campaigns aimed at adolescents, within a span of only two years, tobacco use in Florida declined by 54 percent among middle school students and by 24 percent among high school students.

Adopting a healthy lifestyle, including smoking cessation, reduces a person's risk of lung cancer, heart attack, stroke or respiratory illness.

The Partnership for Health and Accountability, formed in January 2000 and sponsored by the Georgia Hospital Association, is a unique statewide collaborative that brings together health care providers with community agencies and individuals to achieve healthy communities. PHA includes representation from groups like hospitals, physicians, state health officials, legislators and businesses.

The release of the seven health indicators reports marks the beginning of a massive statewide initiative by PHA to create public awareness of the various health problems that plague a large portion of the state's population. Efforts will even include a series of community forums in selected areas in Georgia most affected by these health issues.