According to an ‘exclusive’ report by the political editor of the Sunday Mirror:
At least a million Brits quit smoking during lockdowns ... The South East had the most stubbing out in the first lockdown with 136,000, then the North West with 102,000.
But wait. Is this really an exclusive? Nine months ago, on July 15, 2020, ASH released a series of press releases, national and regional.
According to the national press release, ‘A million people have stopped smoking since the Covid pandemic hit Britain’.
Regionally it was estimated that in the South East over 136,000 smokers had quit, over 102,000 in the North West, and so on.
First published on July 5, 2020, these claims were based on ‘new analysis by ASH and UCL [University College London]’ of a YouGov survey conducted between April 15 and June 20, 2020.
The ‘story’ was widely reported so how is the Sunday Mirror report ‘exclusive’ unless it is based on further research and analysis? Instead it refers merely to unspecified ‘University College London research’.
My own view, for what’s worth, is that if ASH is behind the Mirror's report (CEO Deborah Arnott is quoted) it's yet another ‘confidence trick’.
Ahead of the announcement of a new tobacco control plan, I suspect that ASH wants to create an environment in which the Government is persuaded that it is on course to meet its goal of a ‘smoke free’ England by 2030.
What better way to promote that conceit than by convincing ministers (and MPs) that over a million smokers have quit during the pandemic and all it needs is a further push from government to achieve its well-publicised if optimistic target.
“Success is within our reach! One million smokers have quit during Covid! A smoke free England? We can do this!”
Except, of course, there is considerable doubt that a million smokers have quit since the pandemic hit Britain and we won't know until the Office for National Statistics publishes the latest (2020) smoking rates in the summer, if they’re not 'delayed' by Covid.
Until then everything is pure conjecture because apart from ASH’s ‘analysis’ of a survey that took place only a few months after the pandemic hit Britain there is almost nothing to suggest the sort of mass quitting ASH would like us to believe took place.
If there is a more recent survey that has prompted the Sunday Mirror's report I look forward to reading it but there’s nothing on ASH’s website so I won’t hold my breath.
Meanwhile it's worth reading the Science Media Centre's response to last year's claim because even experienced tobacco control experts such as Dr Sarah Jackson, senior research fellow, UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, University College London, and Professor Linda Bauld, professor of public health, University of Edinburgh, and chair in Cancer Prevention, Cancer Research UK, sounded dubious:
Jackson: "Given that the rate of long-term success in quitting tends to be low, this is very unlikely to translate to a million fewer smokers in the UK, which would be a large decline in prevalence."
Bauld: "The sample of 10,251 in the YouGov survey is intended to be representative of the population as a whole but not necessarily of all smokers, and given that smokers make up around 14% of the population, the number of smokers in the survey will be relatively modest. In addition, the survey will have only been able to capture quitting in the short term. Even quitting for a short time has benefits and increases the chances of future longer term cessation. But most smokers (around three in four) who manage to stay stopped for a month will go back to smoking within a year. So we shouldn’t assume that these results suggest one million smokers have quit for good."
Hardly a rousing endorsement of ASH's analysis and the subsequent headlines, is it?
Anyway I have emailed political editor Nigel Nelson and asked him for any updated research/analysis on which his report might be based. If I get a reply I'll let you know.