For Immediate Release:
November 14, 2005
Contact:
Nanci Gonder, Office of Public Information
573-751-6062
Missouri’s top health official wants all Missouri residents to think of November as the start of quitting season. Julia M. Eckstein, director of Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services, says America’s traditional holiday season offers ample opportunities, and incentive, for Missourians who smoke to pick up a phone and call the new statewide, toll-free tobacco quitline counseling service, 1-800-QUIT-NOW.
“First comes the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smoke Out this November 17 followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve—all are times we traditionally reflect on what is most important. If what is most important is family and health, then quitting should be at the top of the list for anyone who smokes,” Eckstein said.
Eckstein said she is especially pleased to welcome this new quitting season. “This year we have an answer for Missourians who are ready to ask for help in beating this serious addiction, and that answer is 1-800-QUIT-NOW,” Eckstein said.
Missouri’s quitline connects a caller with the counseling service that is recognized as the industry leader—Free & Clear, of Seattle, Washington. Free & Clear has the highest one-year quit rate and leads the nation in experience and number of clients. The service is available to all Missourians. Special provisions provide extended counseling to pregnant women, Medicaid recipients and the uninsured. All callers to the quitline are provided a counseling session and a kit of self-help materials.
A recent review of studies shows that professional quitline counseling more than doubles (56%) a person’s chances of quitting compared to when they simply try to go it alone. “We have documented that at least half of Missouri’s one million adult smokers have tried to quit at least once in the last year,” Eckstein said. “We know also that fewer than three percent (2.8%) of Missouri smokers who tried to quit had participated in cessation counseling.” DHSS is promoting the quitline through a mixed media campaign designed to reach as many of those individuals as possible during this new quitting season.
A plan about Missouri’s overall strategy to increase quitting as well as a fact sheet about the new statewide quitline are available on the DHSS website at www.dhss.mo.gov/SmokingAndTobacco.