( HACKENSACK )—Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney and the Department of Health Services encourage residents to commemorate World No Tobacco Day on Monday, May 31.  This year, the event is designed to draw particular attention to the harmful effects of tobacco marketing towards women and girls.  The tobacco companies have launched marketing campaigns that represent cigarette smoking as feminine and fashionable to counter the public consensus that smoking is socially unacceptable and unhealthy.

“Smoking is a critical women’s health issue that must be addressed,” said McNerney.  “We must provide information to women and minority groups detailing the harmful affects of smoking as well as the benefits of smoking cessation.”  McNerney also added, “Smoking significantly reduces life expectancy in women and affects their quality of life.”

Smoking is the most preventable cause of early death in the United States .  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking-related disease causes the deaths of about 178,000 women in the nation each year.  On average, these women died 14.5 years earlier because they smoked.  The most recent CDC survey, from 2008, showed that more than 1 in 6 American women aged 18 years or older (18.3%) smoked cigarettes. 

The health risks for women and the consequences of smoking are as follows:

• Lung cancer has exceeded breast cancer as the leading cause of death among women
• Damage to airways and small air sacs in the lungs can cause chronic coughing and wheezing
• Heart disease, the leading killer of women, and stroke are greatly increased
• Women smokers aged 35 or older are thirteen times more likely to die from emphysema, bronchitis or cervical cancer
• Lower bone density (thinner bones), higher risk for broken bones, including hip fracture for post-menopausal women
• Bleeding, early delivery (premature birth), emergency Caesarean section (C-section), miscarriages and stillbirths for pregnant women
• Low birth weight slows fetal growth and increases risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in their infants
• Infertility or irregular menstrual cycles
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, which can cause blindness

Women comprise about 20% of the world’s more than 1 billion smokers.  Women are a major target of opportunity for the tobacco industry, which needs to recruit new users to replace the current users who will die prematurely from tobacco-related diseases.  Although the World No Tobacco Day 2010 theme will focus on marketing to women, it will also take into account the need to protect boys and men from the tobacco companies’ tactics.

World No Tobacco Day affords women and men the opportunity to consider quitting for at least the day.  Smokers who need help to “kick the habit” can utilize free quit services provided by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Comprehensive Tobacco Control Program.  N.J. Quitline and Quitnet affords individuals who are ready to quit smoking an opportunity to speak with a counselor or log on from their computer to create a personalized cessation plan.  Residents can call NJ Quitline at 1-866-NJ-STOPS or 1-866-657-8677 or log on NJ Quitnet at www.nj.quitnet.com. 

For more information on World No Tobacco Day, call the Bergen County Department of Health Services Community Tobacco Program at 201-634-2707 or log on to the World Health Organization’s Web site:  www.who.int/tobacco/wntd/2010.

The Bergen County Department of Health Services Community Tobacco Program is funded through a grant from the New Jersey Department of Health & Senior Services Comprehensive Tobacco Control Program (CTCP).