Gays encouraged to quit smoking for Stoptober
This month gays – who are more likely to be smokers than straight people – have been encouraged to give up smoking.
The 1st of October marks the beginning of the NHS campaign to encourage people to give up smoking.
A gay men’s health charity GMFA representative said previously: “Sadly, smoking is much more common amongst the LGBT community than the general population in the UK. And this means that the ill health and deaths that are attributable to smoking are higher in our community too.”
A UCL study published by BMJ Open last year discovered that, “young people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual are twice as likely to have smoked than their heterosexual peers, according to new research published in BMJ Open.
A 2007 NHS study estimated that 12,000 gay men died from smoking related diseases every year – more than those that die from HIV/AIDS.
In America, a report in 2010 showed that LGBT smokers are nearly double that of the general population.
