Secondhand smoke

As many of you will know, Smokefree North West – along with many colleagues across the region – have been in the initial stages of planning a whole system approach to reducing harm from secondhand smoke to children and young people in enclosed spaces. We have carried out significant desk research and insight – which we attach for information.

We have held a stakeholder workshop and drafted initial plans for the short (1 year), medium (2-4 years) and longer term (5-10 years). Our ultimate aim of course is a smokefree future for our children and young people and reduce health inequalities – but in terms of second hand smoke specifically, we would see reduced hospital admissions and primary care visits due to reduced exposure to secondhand smoke.

We have mapped the services and projects around secondhand smoke and smokefree homes across the region – these differ widely and are at various stages of development. We will update this every quarter and put it on this site for information. You will no doubt find this useful as there are a broad range of approaches to this issue across the North West.

We have initiated a steering group to take this work forward and we hope that a group will be able to take forward some immediate planning for a burst of marketing and communications activity this summer – but also to find ways of joining up our systems and approaches across the public and voluntary sectors.

I have met colleagues who would like to share information and learn from colleagues who may have already begun the process of setting up projects, carrying out more local insight and evaluation and joining up work across organisations.

I hope this forum will be a useful and constructive place where we can share our learning and experiences and help shape this work in a way that really impacts the audiences we need to reach.

These include all adult smokers, as well as non-smokers – as we must ensure we persuade peers from across the social spectrum, that exposing children and young people to secondhand smoke is not acceptable. Likewise, we will need to inform decision-makers – elected and non-elected – of the merits of investing in this area of work. Please see our press release area for a copy of our press release calling for smokefree cars which are carrying children and young people.

If you would like to get in touch about this issue – please do so -hadas.altwarg@smokefreenorthwest.org.uk - and please let your colleagues know about this site. You can sign up for an RSS feed – this means that you will receive information about messages posted to this area of this website.

Best wishes,

Hadas Altwarg

Acting Head of Campaigns, Marketing and Communications

Smokefree North West