This yearly celebration informs the public on the dangers of using tobacco, the business practices of tobacco companies, what the World Health Organization (WHO) is doing to fight the tobacco epidemic, and what people around the world can do to claim their right to health and healthy living and to protect future generations.
The Member States of the World Health Organization created World No Tobacco Day in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes. In 1987, the World Health Assembly passed Resolution WHA40.38, calling for April 7, 1988 to be a “world no-smoking day.” In 1988, Resolution WHA42.19 was passed, calling for the celebration of World No Tobacco Day, every year on May 31.
We Can Help Employers Celebrate
The Wellness Coalition is working with businesses to implement smoke-free policies to benefit employers and employees alike.
Employers benefit with:
- Reduced health insurance premiums
- Lower medical costs
- Reduced sick day usage
- Decreased risk of fire and accidents
- Higher employee productivity
Employees experience:
- Higher job satisfaction
- A supportive environment for people who want to quit tobacco for good
- Reduced risk of tobacco-related
diseases
Economic Costs Associated With Tobacco Use
Tobacco use contributes to an extensive list of serious diseases, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular
diseases, multiple cancers, emphysema, and bronchitis; and second-hand smoke contributes to pediatric illness.
In addition to this enormous health burden, smoking also imposes a major economic burden on society, costing the United States more than $300 billion each year, including:
- Nearly $170 billion for direct medical care of adults
- More than $156 billion from lost productivity (e.g., increased use of sick leave) due to premature death.
Businesses Have Already Started Working With Us
Local Montgomery businesses, Patricia’s Boutique, owned by Patricia Thomas, and the House of Greek, owned by Rita Green, have collaborated with us to make their businesses smoke-free and to offer cessation resources.
“My reason is very personal for wanting to educate the community concerning the health hazards of using tobacco products,” said Patricia. “My uncle was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed at age 44. My brother was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed about eight months after the treatments at age 59. My aunt was diagnosed with emphysema and later lung cancer and passed, as well. I have been told by numerous individuals that they would stop smoking if they could afford the patches. I believe The Wellness Coalition’s resources will help many families live a better quality of life and save many lives.”
Implementing a Worksite Tobacco Program
The two major purposes of tobacco cessation programs in the workplace are encouraging tobacco users to quit, and reducing employee exposure to secondhand smoke. Tobacco-free workplace policies and decreasing the number of employees who model tobacco-use behavior will also reduce tobacco use initiation among employees and, in addition, may influence tobacco-use behavior in employees’ families.
Nicotine addiction is often severe and may require multiple quit attempts (8 to 11) before the tobacco user can quit permanently, so health benefits should be structured to provide support for multiple quit attempts.
Once a company has conducted assessment and planning for tobacco-use cessation programs, and developed the specific tasks of implementation for these programs, it is time to develop the evaluation plan. This evaluation plan should be in place before any program implementation has begun.
Metrics for worker productivity, healthcare costs, health outcomes, and organizational change allow measurement of the beginning (baseline), middle (process), and results (outcome) of workplace health programs. It is not necessary to use all these metrics for evaluating programs. Some information may be difficult or costly to collect, or may not fit the operational structure of a company. These lists are only suggested approaches that may be useful in designing an evaluation plan.
These measures are designed for employee group assessment. They are not intended for examining an individual’s progress over time, which would raise concerns of employee confidentiality.
For employer purposes, individual-level measures should be collected anonymously and only reported (typically by a third party administrator) in the aggregate, because the company’s major concerns are overall changes in productivity, health care costs, and employee satisfaction.
In general, data from the previous 12 months will provide sufficient baseline information and can be used in establishing the program goals and objectives in the planning phase, and in assessing progress toward goals in the evaluation phase.
Ongoing measurements every 6 to 12 months after programs begin are usually appropriate measurement intervals, but measurement timing should be adapted to the expectations of the specific program.
