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Attracting and treating ‘routine and manual’ smokers
Leena Sankla, Head of Health Inequality - Cardio Wellness, Reading, UK
Abstract
The purpose of this presentation is to present key findings and share experiences from delivering a number of smoking cessation projects specifically focused on targeting and attracting routine and manual smokers. Specifically, the paper will outline initiatives to increase service uptake, through a combination of different strategies, with an objective of ‘taking the clinic to the patient’. These outreach techniques have included ‘Mobile Clinics’, ‘Door to Door clinics’ and highly flexible clinics providing a service in the evenings, weekends and even to those workers on night shifts. Further, this group has a higher incidence of heart disease, stroke and diabetes – this paper will further expand on how smokers are being screened for these risk factors as part of their six week smoking cessation programme.
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About the presenter
Leena Sankla, FRSPH, is the Head of Health Inequality at Cardio Wellness, which specifically focuses on health inequalities within the Black, Minority & Ethnic (BME) community. In addition, she leads a number of smoking cessation projects for an organisation which is commissioned by PCTs as an external provider of such services. Her particular expertise is in reaching hard to reach groups, specifically BME groups, socially deprived groups and routine and manual workers. She has a long-standing knowledge of smoking and tobacco control, including shisha use and tobacco chewing and delivers these courses to healthcare professionals and trading standards officers.
She has worked closely with ITV and BBC on a number of health watch programmes and has lectured for the WHO at St Georges Hospital, International Centre for Drug Policy and works closely with the Advocacy Forum for Tobacco Control (AFTC), at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.
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