Smoking shock for Aborigines

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Smoking shock for Aborigines

* Nick Miller
* December 13, 2008

SMOKING rates among Aboriginal Victorians are almost twice as bad as the State Government thought, it will admit in its tobacco control strategy, due before Christmas.

Almost 40 per cent of Aboriginal mothers in Victoria reported that they smoked in the month prior to birth.

In order to start addressing the problem, the Government will give $400,000 to Victorian Aboriginal health centres to help persuade pregnant indigenous women to stop smoking, and provide nutrition and financial support.

In an August consultation paper, the Government estimated 29 per cent of the indigenous population were daily smokers — compared with 17 per cent of Victorian adults.

However, it now admits the true figure is more like 50 per cent, and has had to change its targets. “Smoking is the leading avoidable cause of poor Aboriginal health,” a portion of the strategy seen by The Age says. “In 2004-05, 50 per cent of Aboriginal adults in Victoria were daily smokers, and this rate had not significantly declined in at least 10 years.”

Smoking is the leading avoidable cause of the health gap between Aboriginal people and the rest of Australia.

Over the next three years, a $400,000 project will help the Aboriginal health workforce help pregnant women and young mothers quit smoking.

Led by the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, it will establish pilot sites that will find out what works and prove its effectiveness so it can be rolled out across the state.

Aboriginal health workers will be helped to quit smoking, to become role models for the community.

Fiona Sharkie, executive director of anti-smoking group Quit, has welcomed the plan, which her organisation will help fund.

“I think it’s really a sign that the Government is serious about bringing smoking rates down,” she said. “There’s no question that pregnant women know smoking is not good for them or their baby. We need interventions that support a woman to stop, rather than just tell her she shouldn’t smoke.”

Smoking among young, teenage pregnant indigenous women was very high, she said. The program also needed to send a message to the community not to smoke around pregnant or breastfeeding women.

In its Victorian Tobacco Control Strategy consultation paper, released in August, the Government set an “ambitious target” to reduce smoking rates among adult Aboriginal Victorians from 29 per cent to 23 per cent.

In the official strategy, the Government will change its aim to a much bigger figure: to reduce the rate from 50 per cent to 40 per cent — persuading at least 3500 indigenous Victorians to quit in the next five years.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/national/smoking-shock-for-aborigines-20081212-6xl6.html

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