How Health Care Providers Can Help
Tobacco use has been cited as the chief avoidable cause of illness and death in our society and accounts for more than 435,000 deaths each year in the United States. Smoking is a known cause of multiple cancers, heart disease, stroke, complications of pregnancy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and many other diseases. In addition, recent research has documented the substantial health dangers of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke. Despite these health dangers and the public's awareness of those dangers, tobacco use remains surprisingly prevalent. Recent estimates are that about 21 percent of adult Americans smoke, representing approximately 45 million current adult smokers.
In West Virginia:
- 26.7% of Adults in WV Smoke (3rd Highest in the Nation)
- 25.3% of High School Students in WV Smoke
- 28.4 % of Pregnant Women Smoke in WV(compared to 11% Nationwide)
- 3,900 adults die each year from their own smoking
All health care providers, especially those with direct patient contact, have a unique opportunity to help tobacco users quit. Smokers cite a doctor's advice to quit as an important motivator for attempting to stop smoking.
To assist health care providers in advising patients on the dangers of using tobacco, DTP has partnered with the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, WV to offer FREE face-to-face tobacco cessation training based on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) guidelines (www.ahrq.gov).
This training is taught by Lynne Goebel, MD and Imran Khawaja, MD as well as Brenda Dawley, MD and Troy L. McGrew, DDS. This training is available to all healthcare providers, and the two to four hour training is conducted during evening hours and on Saturdays to allow easier access to healthcare providers. The training offers free CME and CEU credits for attendance.
Please contact:
Sheila McCallister
1249 15th Street, Suite 2000,
Huntington, WV 25701
PHONE: (304) 691-1064 for more information.