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"These dollars will go towards
encouraging Illinoisans to make healthier life choices," said Gov.
Blagojevich. "Thousands of adults struggle each day with the battle
of quitting smoking; this money will help many of those adults win
that battle."
Frequent advice from health
professionals to patients to quit smoking has proven successful in
reducing tobacco usage by as much as 30 percent. This program will
be designed to encourage physicians to discuss with patients the
best ways to undertake a smoking cessation commitment.
"During routine health care visits,
physicians have an opportunity to discuss smoking habits with their
patients," said Dr. Eric E. Whitaker, state public health director.
"Encouraging their patients to quit and offering them support in
their attempts to do so can be effective. These brief counseling
interventions, which can last as little as a few minutes, can have a
positive impact on adult tobacco cessation rates."
The Illinois Academy of Family
Physicians will work in collaboration with the Illinois Society of
Internal Medicine to develop the medical education curriculum. They
will then train primary care medical professionals to request
information from adult patients about their tobacco use, apply
medical treatments and social interventions to increase cessation
attempts, and maintain support of cessation strategies in subsequent
patient visits.
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this article]
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Funding for the initiative comes from a
$75,000 grant to the Illinois Department of Public Health from the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and $50,000 from an
agreement the state reached with tobacco companies to settle a
lawsuit to recover tobacco-related disease treatment costs.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable
cause of death and disease in the nation and is known to cause
chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease and stroke, as well as
cancer of the lung, larynx, esophagus, mouth and bladder.
The adult
smoking cessation project will be patterned after the Illinois
Department of Public Health's 2002 project, "Adolescent
Tobacco Use
-- Prevention and Cessation: Strategies for Primary Care Providers." [To download the Adobe Acrobat
reader for the project file, click here.]
For the youth project, the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians in
conjunction with the Illinois Chapter of American Academy of
Pediatrics conducted a needs assessment, convened an expert panel
and developed a training program for health care providers of
adolescents. These same steps will be taken to develop an effective
program for adults.
[News release
from the governor's office]
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