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May 11, 2007
Beating The Evil Weed
I have just returned from a board of directors meeting at the Centers for Disease Control Foundation. The most interesting topic at this spring’s session was the CDC Foundation’s partnership with the Bloomberg Foundation (New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s charitable arm) to reduce the prevalence of smoking around the world. Mayor Mike took a very controversial stand early in his first term to ban smoking in NY City restaurants and has now decided to address the issue on a broader stage by donating $125 million to five health non-governmental organizations who work on this issue.
Here are some staggering statistics. Tobacco is the number one preventable cause of death with five million lives lost annually to tobacco related disease (HIV AIDS is #2 at three million a year). Tobacco control is woefully under funded, with spending per annual mortality at one-sixteenth as much HIV AIDS. In Bangladesh, between 20 and 40% of adult males smoke; they spend twice as much on tobacco as on clothing, housing and education combined. Half of total deaths occur in middle age, with terrible consequences for productivity and family. 440,000 Americans die each year as a result of smoking, accounting for one in five of all US deaths annually. Smokers cost employees $1900 per year in lost productivity and smoking related illness, plus $1850 in excess medical expenses due to sickness.
What is known so far about prevention and cessation? School based education programs seem ineffective. It is much better to have important cultural and sports figures such as Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star, or Bollywood actors/actresses speaking out in media to counter the inevitable peer pressure and seductive imagery of smoking. Relatively few women smoke; there is still time to keep it this way, according to Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC. Youth demand is very responsive to price rises; meanwhile there is evidence that governments seeking to maximize revenue from tobacco taxation do best with a smaller number of users paying a higher price. Counter-marketing, making fun of traditional images such as the Marlboro cowboy, is vital. The implementation of smoke-free zones (at work or at retail) and clinical cessation aids for those addicted (disclosure: Edelman works with Pfizer on one such pharmaceutical treatment) are also important.
The CDC Foundation intends to survey smokers in 13-15 key markets such as China, Mexico, India, Egypt, Russia, Brazil, and Turkey where 2/3 of the world’s smokers live. The goal is to create a protocol which can be used by the four other Bloomberg Foundation partners such as Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids to maximize the $125 million grant. Among the questions currently under consideration: Have you quit before? Have you seen any ads asking you to quit? Where do you buy your cigarettes? Does your employer encourage you to quit? If you have other questions that come to mind, please post a comment on my blog and I will forward them to the CDC.
The CDC is also interested in finding private sector partners who might want to improve the health of their employees in developing markets while helping their own bottom line through lower absenteeism and better productivity. Please let me know whether any of your companies might be willing to have a discussion with the CDC.
At Edelman, we have just earned the Gold Standard accreditation with the CEO Roundtable on Cancer’s protocol www.ceoroundtableoncancer.org, which establishes a tobacco-free workplace and offers assistance to present smokers.
The CEO Cancer Gold Standard is the first major initiative of the Roundtable on Cancer-- a group of CEOs and business leaders from diverse industries united by a pledge to apply the untapped power of business to fight cancer and save lives. It has five pillars: tobacco cessation, diet and nutrition, physical activity, screening and early detection, and education on cancer clinical trials.
In addition to our new U.S. tobacco-free workplace policy and smoking cessation initiatives and support, we will be introducing a “Wellness and You” link on our intranet to provide practical information for all staff for living a healthy lifestyle including nutrition information such as: healthy recipes, tips sheets for proper diet, and eating on the road. Organized walk/run events hosted throughout will also be posted on the site giving employees the opportunity to join an event in their area. The site will provide guidelines for getting timely cancer screening care and early detection, and provide links to information on cancer clinical trials. To date we’ve concentrated on the US were more than half of our staff are based, but we’re currently working on creating similar initiatives around the world.
To provide additional incentive, I am offering to give any employee who quits within the next few months a financial reward of $500 if they’re smoke-free six months later. After all, I am the guy who kept stuffing my father’s cigarette packages into the toilet in my parents’ bathroom; after three visits by the plumber, my father took his advice, gave in to his six year old and stopped smoking.
I hope to detail the effectiveness of our efforts through this blog.
Richard
Posted by Edelman at May 11, 2007 3:47 PM |
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Comments
I have to take my hat of to you offering this kind of incentive for people to quit smoking
Posted by: eddie mullen at May 14, 2007 1:55 PM
Richard:
The CEO Roundtable Gold Standard is also strongly support by our client, C-Change. The mission of C-Change is to leverage the combined expertise and resources of its Members to eliminate cancer as a (major) public health problem at the earliest possible time. Great to see that we are practicing what we communicate.
Lynn
Posted by: Lynn at May 15, 2007 12:43 PM
If the staggering statistics aren't enough of a motivator for people to quit smoking, then maybe the government can provide a tax advantage to employers to incentivize them. Kinda a reimbursement program for the $500 you are offering to each employee that quits.
Posted by: Shimon Sandler - Search guru at May 15, 2007 2:15 PM