You are here: Home > Publications > 2001

Tobacco Control

DHB Toolkit

Date of publication: October 2001

• Summary
• Publication availability
• Related information

---

Summary

This toolkit is designed to assist District Health Boards (DHBs) to implement the New Zealand Health Strategy priority population health objective of:

‘reducing smoking (and the harm from second-hand smoke)’.

This is one of 13 priority areas identified in the New Zealand Health Strategy. The toolkit’s development has been led by the Public Health Directorate of the Ministry of Health, with expert advice from an advisory group of tobacco control experts drawn from the wider health sector. This toolkit has linkages to toolkits in several other priority areas of the New Zealand Health Strategy.

Tobacco policy operates within a context of significant tobacco-related death and illness, associated costs to the public health services and to the wider costs to society, and an emphasis on Māori health and wellbeing. Approximately 4,700 New Zealand smokers die from smoking-related illnesses each year. It is estimated that a further 400 people die each year from exposure to second-hand smoke. Those smokers who die from a tobacco-related cause lose, on average, 14 years of life compared with non-smokers. New Zealand’s tobacco control strategy has seen tobacco consumption fall by almost 50 percent from 1990 to 2000. However, the percentage of people smoking, although continuing a downward trend, fell by only about 2–3 percent over that period. The section on Policy Context covers these issues.

The challenge is to reduce smoking prevalence by assisting those who wish to quit smoking and, better still, discouraging people from taking up the habit in the first place. The benefits of quitting are considerable in terms of both people’s health and quality of life and the cost savings to the health services and society. For example, within two years of quitting, a former smoker’s risk of heart disease or stroke is similar to that of a non-smoker.

The New Zealand Health Strategy emphasises the need for health policy to reduce inequalities for those population groups with the poorest health status, and particularly Māori and Pacific peoples. The section entitled Best Evidence on Intervention points to those interventions for the prevention and cessation of smoking for which strong evidence is available. Research also indicates benefits are forthcoming from interventions that target or adapt services to specific population groups.

This section also identifies recommended key interventions, a subject Appendix 1 develops in more detail.

In some areas, more research is required to develop a greater understanding of effective interventions and this issue is discussed under the section on Research Strategy.

Appendix 3 points to useful tobacco control websites and the Endnotes to the toolkit include references noted in the toolkit text and in the interventions template. Key reference documents, upon which the toolkit relies heavily, are identified at the front of the toolkit.

---

Publication availability

The publication is available in Word and PDF format below:

Tobacco Control Toolkit (Word, 409 KB)
Tobacco Control Toolkit (PDF, 685 KB)


Read our copyright information

Go to information about ordering and downloading publications

---

Related information

National Drug Policy (www.ndp.govt.nz/tobacco)