It is estimated that one in four working adults in the United States still smokes. Tobacco use among your employees hurts your organization’s health, productivity, and costs. Consider this, people who smoke:
Get sick more often and are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions like asthma, emphysema, acid reflux, and cancer.
Spend $1,623 more in excess medical costs each year than non-smokers.
Miss more days of work and experience more unproductive time at work, driving higher productivity loss.
Incur $1,807 in higher productivity losses per year compared to non-smokers.
If you are not helping your employees kick the habit, you will likely face a continued rise in disease and disability and, with it, continued increasing costs.
Guide to Quitting Smoking: a 53-page booklet that covers why people smoke, various resources people can look into to assist them in quitting, and how they work, and several facts and figures. Free copies of documents can be ordered by calling them at 1.800.227.2345. Other resources: www.quitnet.comwww.everydaychoices.org
Freedom From Smoking, a program that teaches skills and techniques proven to help smokers quit. Available as a group, clinic, online program, or self-help book. N-O-T; Not-On-Tobacco program to help teens quit smoking. Lung HelpLine: 1-800-LUNGUSA Benefits of Quitting Timeline
Cessation Resource Center: available to registered state and organizational tobacco cessation programs. Consist of protocols, policies and procedures, materials created for presentations and distribution, and training manuals. CRC also includes materials designed for use with health care systems and businesses and in policy arenas like Medicaid. These user-tested materials provide information about topics such as health care system changes, community initiatives, business, reimbursement, quitlines, and evaluation materials. Telephone Quitlines: a document to assist health care organizations and employers to contract for and monitor telephone-based tobacco cessation services. Coverage for Tobacco Use Cessation Treatments: document provides information on why health insurance coverage for tobacco use treatments is important, what treatments are available, and how benefits should be designed. 1-800-QUIT-NOW Other governmental resources: www.FDA.govwww.SurgeonGeneral.gov
Find A Meeting search page. Meeting Starter Kit: for a person or group to start their own meetings. The Complete Outreach Booklet: a kit to assist a new group in starting a public outreach campaign (sample letters for mass mailings, using radio and TV, sample flier, business cards, etc.)
