NOVEMBER is Lung Awareness Month and smokers in NSW are once again being confronted with a powerful campaign that brings to life the terrible health consequences of smoking.
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The Many Diseases campaign centres on a TV commercial with a graphic montage of smoking-related illnesses and a moving outdoor installation that shows tar choking a set of lungs.
Smoking remained the leading cause of preventable death and disease in NSW and the biggest contributing risk factor to lung cancer, said Anita Dessaix manager of cancer prevention at the Cancer Institute NSW.
"The Many Diseases campaign is a reminder that heart disease, gangrene, stroke, emphysema and lung cancer are all consequences of smoking."
Each year in NSW, about 46,000 people are hospitalised and more than 5000 people die as a result of smoking.
Lung cancer is also responsible for one in five cancer deaths.
"We want to encourage smokers to make a step in the right direction. Making the decision to quit, no matter how long you've been smoking for, is one of the best things you can do to improve your health and wellbeing.
"Quitting reduces your risk of lung cancer, heart attack and stroke and best of all, the risk continues to decrease the longer you've stayed quit," Ms Dessaix said.
For Quit information, tools and advice:
NSW Quitline service 13 78 48
KEY SMOKING FACTS
- There were approximately 943,595 adult smokers in NSW in 2014.
- More than one in four male cancer deaths (29%) and one in five female cancer deaths (20%) could be attributed to smoking in NSW in 2008.
- The five year relative survival from lung cancer in NSW is 18%; survival from lung cancer is much lower than most other cancers.
- The cost to the NSW community as a result of tobacco smoking in 2006-07 was estimated conservatively at $8.4 billion.
