A dults with mental illness are more likely to smoke cigarettes – and smoke more cigarettes per month – than adults without mental illness, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday.
The report concluded that people with mental illness smoke at a rate 70 percent higher than people without a mental illness diagnosis – confirming the existence of a problem that public health researchers have known about for years.
Approximately one in five adults in the United States has a mental illness, and 36 percent of that population admits to smoking at least once in the past month. American Indians and Alaska Natives reported particularly high rates of smoking, as well as younger adults, people living below the poverty line and people with lower levels of education. In addition to smoking more heavily than smokers without mental illness, smokers with mental illness were less likely to quit the habit.
Prior research has found that individuals with mental illness often suffer from co-occurring health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illnesses. It is likely that elevated smoking rates could contribute to the higher incidence of those conditions in people with mental illness, eventually leading to early death.
Anti-smoking campaigns have had great success over the past decade, and smoking rates among adults are now lower than they have been in more than six decades, according to a Gallup poll. But over time people with mental illness have proven to be less responsive to anti-smoking messages, and their smoking rates have remained static.
The demographics mentioned in the recent CDC report represent a cross-section of some of the most marginalized and under-served people in society. Individuals with mental illness are more likely to lack health insurance and have less access to healthcare. For some, nicotine is a form of self-medication. Others are unable to deal with the stress of withdrawal on top of their daily struggle to manage the symptoms and side effects of mental illness.
It is obvious that people with mental illness face significant challenges in quitting smoking, but CDC director Tom Frieden is quick to note that “Smokers with mental illness, like other smokers, want to quit and can quit.” One of the problems, however, is that smokers with mental illness receive less support in their efforts to kick the habit. The CDC therefore suggests that mental health professionals regularly ask their clients if they smoke, and recommends that more mental health facilities offer counseling and individually tailored assistance in quitting.
Smoking statistics aren’t all bad: quitting for as little as one year can lead to dramatic improvements in health, and within five years of quitting the risk of cancer drops by half. Incorporating smoking interventions into general treatment for mental illness can help to extend these benefits to a part of society that needs them most.
