The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services is asking health care providers to display the information and share these new services with patients. With each patient visit, doctors and dentists have an excellent opportunity to encourage smokers to quit. The Governor noted that it is important for health care providers to raise the topic of smoking cessation. According to the most recent U.S. Surgeon General's report, when physicians advise their patients to quit smoking, five to 10 percent of smokers quit based on that recommendation alone. Health and Senior Services Commissioner Christine Grant said that more than one in five adults and more than a quarter of high school students in New Jersey are smokers.
Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death and disease in New Jersey.
Almost 13,000 New Jersey residents die every year from diseases directly related to smoking. The Quitline and Quitnet information kits are being distributed to doctors' and dentists'offices around the state, as well as to clinics, HMOs and college and university health services. The kits are also being sent to all state legislators, who are encouraged to help inform their constituents about the quit-smoking services. In the four days following the launch, an estimated 700 New Jerseyans logged on to Quitnet and 140 of them immediately registered for the service. The department will continue to collect data on the use of both programs.