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Guest editorial: Karen McLeay
 Physiotherapy New Zealand totally supports the Smokefree Coalition. We are 100 percent behind the smoking cessation message and the push for all health professionals to become Quitline providers.
The Quitline programme is a component of the physiotherapy undergraduate training and all new graduates now qualify to deliver the programme. Respiratory health is also one of the three core physiotherapy bases needed for registration in New Zealand. All physiotherapists are therefore well positioned to promote the ABC* message and become quit card providers. A 2010 survey of members found 30 percent of respondents had completed training in the ABC approach and a further 15 percent intended to.
Alongside the push to become quit card providers Physiotherapy New Zealand is working to raise the awareness of the role physiotherapists can play to improve the quality of life of people suffering from respiratory illnesses. Smoking is, unfortunately, the key causative factor for respiratory diseases; for many the stop smoking message (while still important) has come too late and they are now coping with the debilitating
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Pulmonary rehabilitation has been proven as an effective treatment for COPD, improving the person's quality of life, especially their ability to participate in physical activities. Physiotherapists are key members of the team of health professionals providing pulmonary rehabilitation and part of our promotional work will be advocating for improved access to these programmes.
A study in the New Zealand Medical Journal (Levack W et al (2012); Uptake of pulmonary rehabilitation in New Zealand by people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2009) identified that currently only 1 percent of people with COPD participated in pulmonary rehabilitation. Lack of access is the problem and lack of government funding for pulmonary rehabilitation is the limiting factor. As well as supporting the quit smoking message, Physiotherapy New Zealand will be lobbying for increased funding for pulmonary rehabilitation so more New Zealanders have access to evidence-based, cost-effective treatment.
Karen McLeay, Executive Director
Physiotherapy New Zealand
* Ask patients about their smoking. Offer Brief advice
about quitting. Offer to refer them to Cessation treatment.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Free smoking cessation workshops and seminars
 Enhance your nursing practice by improving your ABC smoking cessation skills.
Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa New Zealand has been putting the finishing touches to a series of workshops and seminars which will bring together an overseas speaker, Jennifer Percival, with Dr Hayden McRobbie and Dr Mark Wallace-Bell.
The sessions aim to equip busy health professionals with fast effective smoking cessation skills which fit with everyday practice. These skills enhance ABC smoking cessation interventions.
Jennifer is an internationally renowned smoking cessation trainer and tobacco control advisor to the Royal College of Nursing, and this will be her third visit to New Zealand. Hayden is a primary architect of the
New Zealand Smoking Cessation Guidelines and Mark specialises in Motivational Interviewing.
Find
out more.
Te Hautaki o Ara Taiohi
 This is where local people working in the youth sector get to meet Ara Taiohi Board and staff members to find out about the organisation and how members and others might connect at a local level.
If you are in or close to Invercargill, Cromwell or Nelson please note that the meetings in those centres will be held 21, 22 and 28 February. The Northland and Auckland meetings are set for mid to late March. Then there's a break until May, when we go to Rotorua, East Coast, New Plymouth and Palmerston North. The date for the Christchurch meeting is still be confirmed.
Dates, venues and contact people for February meetings are:
Invercargill: Tues 21 February, 10am-4pm
Venue: Murihiki Marae; contact Wayne Johnstone ph 03 948 2492
Cromwell: Wed 22 February, 9am-2.30pm
Venue: Cromwell and Districts Presbyterian Church; contact Susan Jefferson ph 03 443 1444
Nelson: Tues 28 February, 9am-4pm
Venue: The Granary, Flounders Park; contact Dianne Kilpatrick ph 03 332 4476
The rest of the schedule will soon be posted on the Ara Taiohi website.
New SUDI Prevention Resources
 National
toolkit
An online toolkit is being developed under the leadership of Whakawhetu and TAHA, with the expertise of Dr Nick Baker and Prof Ed Mitchell and the support of
the Ministry of Health and Change for our Children.
The toolkit includes CME accredited education, with downloadable tools to support needs assessment, planning and intervention. The draft tool is scheduled for consultation, and a preview of the toolkit will be shown on 19 March, during the launch of Te Ohonga Ake the Health of Māori Children and Young People with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities Report.
Health promotion kit
Whakawhetu has been developing a Health Promotion Kit to support the delivery of SUDI
prevention messages to Māori. The kit consists of a CD
booklet including three songs, talk cards, posters and a cartoon frieze.
The resources are intended to be used by health professionals to support the delivery of face to face SUDI
prevention messages during education sessions and one to one conversations.
A preview of the health promotion kit will be shown on 19 March, during the Launch of Te Ohonga Ake the Health of Māori Children and Young People with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities Report.
PHA Conference 2012 – Call for abstracts
 The Public Health Association (PHA) is holding its annual conference in Wellington (Pipitea Campus, Victoria University) from 3-5 September. The conference committee is now calling for abstracts.
The theme of the conference is "Equity from the start – valuing our children". The conference will focus on children and the social determinants of their wellbeing, as well as our responsibility to provide for every child equal opportunities, regardless of their parents' income, education or ethnicity.
Given the theme of the conference, the planning committee is eager to engage
the broader network of people involved in children's wellbeing.
The conference streams are:
- Looking back to look forward – for work or initiatives that identify what has already been achieved to improve child health and improve equity, and what challenges lie ahead
- Values to achieve equity – for projects that investigate the approaches needed to achieve equity and which highlight the values behind these approaches
- Children's voices – for projects or activities that bring children's voices into decision-making processes and seek active participation from children
- What can we agree on? – for activities or approaches that help us to develop a consensus and move forward
- Taking action – for success stories, evaluation of approaches, identifying actions where there is evidence of effectiveness.
If you have knowledge, experience or learning to share on any of the streams or another related public health topic, we warmly invite you to submit an abstract.
Presentations may include, but need not be limited to:
- Short presentations – presentations of five minutes or less. Click to read the presentation guidelines.
- Standard presentations – ten to fifteen minute presentations with five minutes for questions at the end
- Workshops – longer interactive sessions (up to one hour). In your abstract please explain how you will ensure active participation by those attending and the length of time you expect to need.
Please note we are not inviting poster presentations this year.
More than one abstract may be submitted. All abstracts will be reviewed by the conference committee, which may want to contact authors for clarification before deciding whether to accept abstracts.
Submit abstracts here. The period for submitting abstracts closes at midnight Monday 16 April 2011.
Masters and PhD Scholarships
Want to help halve smoking prevalence in New Zealand by 2020?
Work on one of the world's most challenging public health issues of our time. Join an innovative programme involving leading academics and researchers from across New Zealand.
The New Zealand Tobacco Control Research Tūranga has one Masters and one PhD scholarship to award.
The Tobacco Control Research Tūranga Masters Scholarship is valued at $10,000 (tax-free) per annum plus tuition fees for up to one year.
The Tobacco Control Research Tūranga PhD Scholarship is valued at $25,000 (tax-free) per annum plus tuition fees for up to three years.
Applications close 31 March 2012.
For more information and an application form, contact Candy Eason.
Smokefree outdoor areas – ASPIRE2025
 The following was written by ASPIRE2025 researchers, and was published in the
Otago Daily Times on Monday 20 February 2012. It makes a case for smokefree outdoor areas and addresses some of the
dodgy reasoning involved in recent debate over smokefree outdoor areas in Auckland.
The points raised, and questions relating to smokefree outdoor areas, will also be addressed in an ASPIRE2025 forum on smokefree outdoor areas organised by Dr George Thomson (george.thomson@otago.ac.nz), to be held in Wellington on 23 February.
Find out more about this event.
Making a case to dispel smoke
Introducing smokefree outdoor areas will help us reach the New Zealand goal of being "Smokefree" by 2025, writes a group of University of Otago staff.
Recent debate over proposals to introduce smokefree outdoor areas has elicited diverse responses; however, some comments overlook important research, practical experiences, as well as public opinion.
At the extreme, we read predictable rhetoric invoking proponents of this measure as moralising "fun police", hell-bent on victimising those with the temerity to deviate from narrowly defined "healthy" behaviours.
However, if we probe further, we find a strong evidence base supporting these proposals.
In a curious restating of the tobacco industry's claims, opposition to smokefree local areas frames smoking as entirely a matter of individual choice, conveniently overlooking the fact that addiction compromises any choice smokers might once have had.
The fact smokers do not have a proper choice is a key reason why the vast majority (more than 80 percent) regret having started and wish they were smokefree. They dislike the way their addiction controls their lives and resent the costs (health, financial and social) it imposes on them.
Having spoken with many smokers in our research, nearly all want to be smokefree, and none has ever wished their children would grow up to be smokers. Most smokers make several quit attempts each year, further evidence they wish to be rid of this addiction.
Quitting smoking is often difficult.
Smokers may need many serious quit attempts. Successful quitting requires strength, determination, resilience, and support. The first three attributes are traits smokers must largely find within themselves, but the last one, support, is something we can all offer.
Sometimes this is highly personal: a sympathetic health worker or a caring and understanding partner and family.
But support can take other forms, from smoking colleagues who don't undermine quit attempts to the non-smoking colleagues who offer practical encouragement, from smokefree workplaces to in-house quit programmes, and from smokefree outdoor areas to the widespread availability of cessation products.
Otago Daily Times, 20 February 2012
Read the full article.
Health Improvement and Innovation Resource Centre resources
 The following resources are available via the Health Improvement and Innovation Resource Centre website:
Recent research
Click the links below each piece for more information.
Smokefree outdoor area research, Department of Public Health
The University of Otago, Wellington, has created a page that links research material related to smokefree outdoor areas and policy publications. There are also links to videos, and photos of outdoor smokefree signs.
www.otago.ac.nz/wellington/departments/publichealth/summerschool/otago026293.html
Hazardous patterns of alcohol use are relatively common in smokers: ITC Project (New Zealand)
This study investigated patterns of alcohol use in a nationally representative sample of New Zealand smokers.
http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/abstract.php?id=5022
Uptake of pulmonary rehabilitation in New Zealand by people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2009
This study aimed to estimate of uptake of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) by people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in New Zealand in 2009. It found there is a marked shortfall between the national levels of provision of PR and the prevalence of COPD, with less than 1 percent of people with COPD participating in PR each year in New Zealand
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22282274
Efficacy of a nicotine mouth spray in smoking cessation: a randomised, double blind trial
A nicotine mouth spray has advantages over other acute forms of nicotine replacement therapy such as a faster uptake of nicotine and faster relief of craving.
http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2012/02/09/09031936.00155811.abstract
Respiratory symptoms after smoking cessation among college students
Data on respiratory symptoms after smoking cessation are available for mature adults, but for young adults these data are limited to observational studies. This retrospective analysis of smoking cessation trials addresses the gap.
www.online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ped.2011.0097
Childhood leukaemia study points to smoking fathers
Research from Western Australia's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research finds heavy smoking by fathers around the time of conception greatly increases the risk of the child developing
acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the most common form of childhood cancer.
www.medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-childhood-leukaemia-fathers.html
Exploration of parental smokers' experience, perceptions, and family's influences on their smoking in the presence of children.
When thinking of smoking with children around, parents engaged in a process of weighing the importance of the need to smoke and adverse effects from exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, a consideration based mostly on their experience. A pattern of correspondence was identified between families' level of concern and promoting change among smokers.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22293613
Prenatal exposure to tobacco and future nicotine dependence: population-based cohort study
This study sought to clarify the relationship between prenatal tobacco exposure and adolescent tobacco uptake and dependence in boys and girls respectively.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/early/2012/01/27/bjp.bp.111.100123.abstract
Smokefree shorts
 Where possible, links to full articles are provided below each story.
New Zealand
Passion for smokefree message
 A
16-year-old Marlborough Girls' College student will be representing her region at a national forum discussing how to make New Zealand smokefree. Lamosa Tepu will be the only youth representative at the Otago University Smokefree Outdoor
Forum in Wellington on
23 February, listening to lectures and discussing ideas with politicians and health experts on ways to make outdoor public places smokefree.
Lamosa has been a youth advocate for Smokefree Marlborough since March and has a strong personal motivation to take on smoking as both her parents and her older brother smoke.
Marlborough Express, 15 February 2012
Stub-out stance a winner
Smoking has been stubbed out entirely at a top Taranaki cafe, and signs are in place outside warning people not to light up. Bach on Breakwater owner Barbara Olsen-Henderson has made her outdoor deck area smokefree and she is hoping other hospitality providers will follow suit. Mrs Olsen-Henderson is a former "pack a day smoker" who gave up 42 years ago.
Taranaki Daily News, 9 February 2012
International
Big tobacco whistleblower at ease on camera
 Victor DeNoble
was hired by Philip Morris in 1979 with the understanding his employer wanted to develop a safer cigarette and reduce the negative effects of nicotine.
"Here was a company that was willing to improve its product, and that improvement would result in better health," he says. "I thought this was the greatest company in the world."
His research would reveal not only that nicotine is addictive but that another chemical found in cigarette smoke, called acetaldehyde, strengthens the effect of nicotine on the brain.
Chicago Tribune, 9 February 2012
Big tobacco prepares for packaging revolution
From the start of December 2012, under the world's toughest antismoking laws, tobacco companies in Australia will have to sell their products in identical drab packaging, without logos but featuring graphic images of smoking-related diseases.
Big tobacco has launched an aggressive fight back against the plain packaging law. The curbs on Australia's $9.5bn-a-year smoking market do not pose much of a threat to profits. But the bigger worry is that, just as the ban on smoking in public places spread from California across the world, Australia's move could spread to the $161bn cigarette market in the European Union and beyond.
Samachar.com, 14 February 2012
Government defends plain packaging, restricts online advertising
The Australian government argues its plain packaging laws do not amount to an acquisition of the companies' property, because they do not deliver to the Commonwealth or anyone else "any identifiable and measurable benefits or advantages".
Tobacco Journal International, 9 February 2012
Passive smoking too common among kids in cars, CDC says
Is passive smoking kids' biggest danger when riding in cars? A new US
government report suggests when it comes to cars, it's time to crack down on more than just speeding and driving while drunk.
CBS News, 6 February 2012
Countries where you can't smoke with children in the car
The Welsh government is launching a high profile campaign to stub out smoking in cars with children on board, but you might be surprised to learn that right now in some countries, it is already illegal. Here's a list of where.
Glove Box Blog, 8 February 2012
Electric cigarette explodes in US man's mouth
 Fire
officials say an electric cigarette exploded in a Florida man's mouth, severely burning his face and knocking out some of his front teeth.
North Bay Fire Department Division Chief Joseph Parker says it appears the cigarette's battery exploded while the man was smoking it. Parker likened it to a bottle rocket going off in the man's mouth. He also lost part of his tongue.
Authorities say they don't know what model e-cigarette it was.
New Zealand Herald, 16 February 2012
Smoking slows memory, reasoning in middle-aged men
New evidence suggests smoking isn't only bad for the body but can also take a toll on the mind. A study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry linked smoking to faster, more dramatic age-related mental decline in men.
ABC News, 6 February 2012
Abolish the food industry
If public health is a legitimate reason to curb corporations' advertising to kids, why limit bans to cigarettes, booze, and toys in happy meals, and not include, say, all unhealthy food?
The cigarette industry survives, as does its advertising. Cigarette companies' rights to free speech have, however, been curtailed on grounds of public health, and for the health of children above all.
The Atlantic, 6 February 2012
Lance Armstrong campaigns for California cigarette tax measure
 Lance Armstrong plans to campaign for California's Proposition 29. The measure would tax a pack of cigarettes by $1 more to fund cancer research and other programmes.
Armstrong's Texas-based foundation has donated $1.5 million to the 'Yes on 29' campaign.
"We feel that Proposition 29 will save lives, stop kids from smoking and just may lead us to a cure," he told reporters in a conference call.
Los Angeles Times, 16 February 2012
Public smoking bans 'drive down home smoking'
Public smoking bans may also encourage smokers to light up less often at home, according to new European research. The study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, challenges the argument commonly put forward by opponents of smokefree legislation that such bans could encourage more smoking at home.
Cancer Research UK, 14 February 2012
QUOTABLE QUOTES
"My parents are proud of me and it's a boost of confidence since my whole family smokes saying 'I don't and I don't want to be like them'"
Young Marlborough smokefree advocate Lemosa Tepu says it's not hard
being the only non-smoker in her family.
Marlborough Express, 15 February 2012
"It stinks. It is their right to smoke, but it's not their right to smoke in my place."
Mrs Olsen-Henderson, owner of Bach on Breakwater, a top Taranaki cafe,
after making her outdoor deck area smokefree.
Taranaki Daily News, 9 February 2012
"Rats don't have social pressures. Rats don't care about losing weight. Rats don't go to the movies. The only reason a rat would press a lever for nicotine is if its brain said, 'I like it.'"
Victor DeNoble, a former research scientist for cigarette-maker Philip Morris,
explaining his early work with lab rats and nicotine addiction.
Chicago Tribune, 9 February 2012
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