The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7190 p385-391
23 March 2002

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British Heart Foundation (www.bhf.org.uk)
DoH (www.doh.gov.uk)

More awareness of NRT needed

Research conducted by the British Heart Foundation shows low awareness about nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) among Asian populations.

The BHF says that 90 per cent of the Asian people surveyed had not heard of NRT and that 70 per cent were not aware of the link between smoking and coronary heart disease. Over a third of people who already had either heart disease or diabetes did not know that NRT could help them stop smoking.

Data from the BHF also revealed that in the general population, few people are aware of the link between smoking and heart disease. "Less than one fifth of people realise that the greatest threat faced by smokers is heart and circulatory disease," the BHF says. Of the 1,011 people surveyed, 55 per cent thought that lung cancer was the disease that smokers are most at risk of, 18 per cent thought heart and circulatory disease, 15 per cent bronchitis and emphysema, 4 per cent throat cancer, 3 per cent stroke and 1 per cent pneumonia.

Meanwhile, new statistics from a Department of Health survey of school children aged between 11 and 15 years show that the proportion of regular smokers was unchanged last year. In 2001, as for 2000, 10 per cent of pupils were regular smokers. Other data showed that 12 per cent of pupils had used drugs in the previous month and 20 per cent in the previous year.