Mental health is a long term condition. For many people, is something that they'll learn to manage throughout their lives. So there's almost no point in intervening with some ones smoking when thei'r mental health improves. If you put smoking cessation treatment into services that are built for dealing with mental health, assessing mental health risk is part of their service. And you can also monitor risk.
According to some estimates smoking causes one in 10 deaths worldwide. A lesser known side-effect of cigarettes is the damage they cause to our mental health. Yet, the rates of smoking among people with mental health conditions are much higher than the rest of the population. Last week, the UK government published the Khan review, an independent report looking at how England could become smoke free by 2030. One of the recommendations was to tackle the issue of mental health and smoking. Madeleine Finlay speaks to epidemiologist Dr Gemma Taylor about how significant this link is, what we can do to break it, and how to dispel the myth that smoking is a stress reliever. Help support our independent journalism at
theguardian.com/sciencepod