JSNA topic report : healthy lifestyles - smoking and tobacco control
Summary of evidence of what works
NICE guidance (NG209) Tobacco: preventing uptake, promoting quitting and treating dependence offers the latest clinical guidelines on what works for stop smoking services.
This guidance covers several recommendations such as:
- organising and planning national, regional or local mass-media campaigns
- coordinated approach to school-based interventions
- whole-school or organisation-wide smokefree policies
- support to stop smoking in primary care and community settings
- promoting stop-smoking support
- using medicinally licensed nicotine-containing products
- helping retailers avoid illegal tobacco sales
- supporting people who do not want, or are not ready, to stop smoking in one go to reduce their harm from smoking
Smokers are three times more likely to quit smoking for good by using an evidence based local stop smoking service to support them. The Buckinghamshire SSS follows the NICE Guidance on delivery.
E-cigarettes (or vapes) have recently emerged as the tool most used by adults for quitting smoking. An international review published in 2020 found that e-cigarettes were 70% more effective in helping smokers quit than nicotine replacement therapy.