Summary

What we know

  • Tobacco use is a major preventable contributor to the gap in life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians.

What works

  • Health professionals providing brief advice on how to quit, when delivered with pharmacotherapy such as nicotine replacement.
  • Training health professionals to deliver cessation advice.
  • Quit groups.
  • Well-delivered multicomponent anti-tobacco programs.

What we don’t know

  • There is good evidence that the following interventions work for the general Australian community, but there is a lack of research showing their effectiveness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people or communities:
    • brief interventions such as advice from health-care professionals
    • varenicline (a nicotine receptor partial agonist)
    • bupropion (an antidepressant)
    • interventions for pregnant women
    • specialist tobacco workers
    • quitlines
    • hospital cessation programs
    • media campaigns
    • price increases and taxation
  • Some interventions evaluated in other populations have not demonstrated an effect in reducing the harm resulting from tobacco, for example, school-based anti-tobacco programs and sports sponsorship programs.
  • Broader initiatives such as raising standards of living, and improving educational and employment opportunities, are also critical to reducing the harm resulting from tobacco use.