Although closer supervision from doctors could curb your use of tobacco, primary care physicians in the US aren’t stepping up to the plate. This is according to a new study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, which found that US doctors are still under-treating smokers in terms of their smoking habits when compared to other chronic diseases.
In the US, smoking is the number one leading cause of preventable death. Smoking can lead to several health concerns, including lung and oral cancers, and so wellness experts, advocates and agencies have come together to modify anti-smoking campaigns, in the hope of preventing new smokers and getting old smokers to quit. However, while these campaigns have been shown to be effective to a certain degree, the fact remains that your doctor is the only person who can provide an individual assessment of your health and wellbeing, and why you should quit smoking.
Reviewing data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey – which compiled information from 2005 to 2007 – the researchers from Yale University and Harvard University discovered that only 4.4% of tobacco users were prescribed medication after a doctor’s visit. When you think that 57.4% of patients receive care for hypertension, and 46.2% of diabetic patients and 42.6% of patients with asthma received treatment options and medications, that measly 4.4% starts looking more and more pitiful, doesn’t it?
The researchers surmised that even though smoking is the leading cause of preventable death, treatment is still lacking because we view smoking as a behavioural problem and not a chronic illness. No one is holding a gun to your head and making you buy and smoke cigarettes, and so, as it is your choice, doctors may not feel like they have the right to make you stop. This was the case with obesity before the American Medical Association (AMA) declared it a disease. According to study lead author Dr. Steven L. Bernstein, associate professor of emergency medicine from Yale, ‘A compelling argument has been made that tobacco use should be reframed as a chronic disease and treated as other chronic conditions such as diabetes. Our study suggests that this has not occurred.’