Many more individuals with diagnosable mental disorders are smokers as compared to the rest of the population. It turns out that mentally ill adults in the United States smoke cigarettes at a rate 70 percent higher than adults without mental illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC analyzed data from the 2009-2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which interviewed 138,000 adults in their home. (It didn t include patients in mental hospitals). One in five of those surveyed were found to have some form of mental illness, and 36 percent of those people were smokers, compared to 21 percent of other adults.
Smoking among the mentally ill is a very serious mental health issue that needs more attention, says CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden. We need to do more to help smokers with mental illness quit....Smokers can quit...Stop-smoking treatments work-and it's important to make them more available to all people who want to quit.
It s sad that there are such a high percentage among those with mental illness who are going to keep on smoking, when they could be introduced to reduced-harm products such as e-cigarettes or snus, says ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. It seems very obvious. I m disappointed that the CDC s director says that the cessation products we have work, but they don t.