MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013

3 in 5 Kentucky adults favor a statewide smoking ban, according to an independent poll that may have oversampled smokers

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

Kentuckians now favor a statewide smoking ban by a margin of 3 to 2, according to the latest Kentucky Health Issues Poll conducted last fall for the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Interestingly, 38 percent of the Kentucky adults polled said they were smokers, much more than the 29 percent found by ongoing federal surveys. Among those identified as smokers, 37 percent favored such a law, while it was favored by 68 percent of former smokers and 75 percent of those who said they had never smoked.

Overall, 59 percent of those polled said they supported a state law that would prohibit smoking in most public places, including workplaces, public buildings, offices, restaurants and bars, while 38 percent said they opposed it and 4 percent said they had no opinion. The figures showed a 5-point shift toward support since the last poll, in 2011. The gain was among smokers and former smokers.

Support for the law was higher among registered voters than non-voters, perhaps a consideration for legislators considering the proposal. Among voters, 62 percent favored it while 36 percent opposed it. Only 50 percent of nonvoters supported it. Support was slightly higher among Republicans (64 percent) than among Democrats (59 percent; only 44 percent of independents, who comprise about 7 percent of Kentucky voters, said they supported it. The poll also found that support for the law increases as age and income increase.

The foundation noted, "Secondhand smoke poses serious health risks. Smoke-free environments are the only way to fully protect nonsmokers from these hazards. To reduce these risks, many Kentucky communities have adopted smoke-free policies. On Jan. 1, 2013, Hopkinsville became the 22nd municipality in Kentucky to implement a comprehensive smoke-free ordinance or regulation," bringing to 34 percent the share of Kentuckians who live in jurisdictions covered by comprehensive smoke-free ordinances or health-department regulations. For a list of the communities and percentages, and those with bans that are less than comprehensive, from the Kentucky Center for Smoke-Free Policy, click here.

The poll, which was also funded by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, was conducted from Sept. 20 to Oct. 14 by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. A random sample of 1,680 adults from throughout Kentucky was interviewed by telephone. This included 1,360 landline interviews and 320 interviews with cell phone users. In 19 of 20 cases, each statewide figure will be accurate to plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. Smaller samples, such as those of smokers and non-smokers, have larger margins of error. There are other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, or context effects that can introduce error or bias. For a copy of the poll's full questionnaire and guidance to interviewers, click here. For more information, go to www.healthy-ky.org
or www.healthfoundation.org/kentucky-health-issues-poll.

Kentucky Health News is a service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

A new report attempts to compare the relative effects of habits on life expectancy

By Jason Koebler, US News & World Report
 

Every so often, a scientific report will come out that warns of the life-shortening dangers of smoking, eating red meat, sitting too long, or of drinking too much alcohol. But until now, no researchers have tried to quantify the day-to-day hazards of bad habits.

British statistician David Spiegelhalter, in a report published recently in British Medical Journal, attempts to quantify which habits have a greater impact on life expectancy: Is drinking heavily worse than living a sedentary lifestyle?

To do this, he created a unit of measure called a "microlife," which corresponds to 30 minutes of life expectancy. Using other studies, he determined that for each day of heavy smoking, a person could be shaving about five hours off his life; someone who watches TV for two hours a day loses about 30 minutes for each day they take part in that activity.

"I'm taking lifelong habits and looking at how they affect people on average, convert it to a daily rate," Spiegelhalter says. "The whole idea is to make a comparison about healthy activities and bad activities. Crudely, drinking two cups of coffee will cancel out eating a burger."

Spiegelhalter says when people hear about life expectancy studies, they assume they'll lose a couple years off the end of their lives. Instead, he says, they should consider it as "aging faster" — a smoker could be hurtling faster towards lung cancer, for instance, than a nonsmoker.

"If you're a smoker, it's like you're moving at your death as if you were living 29 hours a day, it's accelerated aging," he says. "It's a bit of a metaphor — you're getting older quicker rather than living just a bit less."

Here's how different habits stack up, according to Spiegelhalter (estimates are based on various life expectancy studies and hours gained or lost are per day of exposure)

Smoking (15-24 cigarettes per day): -five hours
Alcohol Drinking: First drink, + 30 minutes; -15 minutes per subsequent drink per day
Sedentary behavior: -30 minutes per two hours of TV watching
Eating red meat: -30 minutes per three ounces of red meat consumed
Fruit & vegetables: five servings per day: +two hours
Exercise: +one hour for first 20 minutes, +30 minutes for every additional 40 minutes.

From the National Diabetes Education Program

January is the start of a new year and a time when many people make New Year’s resolutions to be healthier.  Maintaining a healthy weight and staying active can help prevent a number of chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes.  Small changes – such as losing a small amount of weight and becoming more active – can go a long way toward improving your health.  But even if you know what do, figuring out howto do it and fitting it into your daily routine can be a challenge.

Change begins with just one step.  This New Year, make your resolution stick by taking the first step toward a healthier life.  The NDEP’s Just One Steptool will help you take the first of many small steps that can lead to big rewards.  The tool will help you think about:

    what step you will take to help reach your goal (for example, walking),
    when and how often you will do it (for example, go walking on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday during the lunch hour), and
    how much time you will put into your step (for example, walk 15 minutes each day to start).

Once you have taken the first few steps, the NDEP can help you make a plan to help you reach your health goal:
 

1.    Think about what is important to you and your health.  What are you willing and able to do?
2.    Decide what your goals are.  Choose one goal to work on first.
3.    Decide what steps will help you reach your goal.
4.    Pick one step to try this week.

The key to reaching your health goals – and keeping your resolutions all year long – is to set a goal and make a step by step plan.  Resolve to make the first step at http://www.yourdiabetesinfo.org/JustOneStep, then check outhttp://www.yourdiabetesinfo.org/MakeAPlan.

For help to change habits and to lose weight, check out the Weight-control Information Network’s (’s) “Changing Your Habits: Steps to Better Health” fact sheet.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Diabetes Education Program is jointly sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with the support of more than 200 partner organizations.