New Programme Addresses Maori Women Smoking

New Programme Addresses Maori Women Smoking

A new programme of co-ordinated services has been established to address the issue of Maori women smoking during pregnancy.

Tai Tokerau (Northland) has one of the highest smoking rates during pregnancy (estimated at 40%). The number of Maori women smoking during pregnancy is much higher than for non-Maori, and this is a significant factor in the poor health profile evidenced amongst Northland’s Maori children.

“Many Maori women are not motivated to quit when they find out they are pregnant,” Tracy Cornell told the Public Health Association’s annual conference in New Plymouth today.

“A combination of stress factors mean that Maori women are more likely to continue smoking during pregnancy. Combine this with the power of tobacco addiction, and we are faced with a very challenging public health issue.”

Tracy Cornell, who works for the Northland District Health Board, said that focus groups with pregnant Maori women smokers were revealing.

“We concluded that advertising and social media campaigns are not effective for this particular group of smokers. They need to be approached directly and offered intensive support to quit.

“We also believe that GPs and the other health professionals they come into contact with during the course of their pregnancy, make an assumption that these women don't want to quit. So they are not referring these pregnant women to the quitting and support services available.

“Also Maori women are more likely to live in smoking environments, which means that a collective approach to quitting could be more effective. With Mama as the focus we could support whole whanau to quit. We need to think of innovative ways to utilise existing resources.”

Three alliances of organisations involved in Smokefree work have been established to deal with the issue of Maori women smoking during pregnancy – in Whangarei, mid-Northland, and the Far North.

“We are trying to encourage greater co-ordination between the network of services involved in this work. We need to encourage professionals like GPs and midwives to be confident to address smoking with their Maori clients, and refer them onto cessation support services.”

Even though it’s early days the Northland alliances have already increased the dialogue between Northland’s network of health professionals and cessation support services.

“It’s a cost effective solution and focuses on relationships. It’s easy for the issue of smoking during pregnancy to be overlooked, but the alliances are helping create more awareness amongst health workers who are first-point of contact with pregnant Maori women.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media