The study found that about 70 percent of people with disabilities who smoke and had visited a doctor in the last year had been advised to quit smoking. However, more than 40 percent of those advised to quit reported not being told about the types of tobacco-cessation treatment available.
"About 50 million Americans are living with a disability and most Americans will experience a disability some time during the course of their lives," said Dr. Edwin Trevathan, director of CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
Disparities in smoking prevalence, in addition to barriers to the use of preventive services (such as traveling to a doctor's appointment) put people with disabilities at risk for declining health. Researchers are unsure why the smoking prevalence is higher in people with disabilities, but it is an area for further examination.
Obviously, smoking cessation is the most important step smokers can take to improve their overall health and reduce their risk for disease.
Approximately 10 percent of smokers have a smoking-related chronic disease, primarily heart disease or emphysema. Smoking cessation lowers the risk for lung and other types of cancer. The risk for developing cancer declines with the number of years of smoking cessation.
Research in the study also confirms that people with disabilities are less likely than people without disabilities to receive preventive health care and therefore are more subject to illness and disease.
According to the 2005 Surgeon General's Call to Improve the Health and Wellness of Persons with Disabilities, the resulting higher health care expenditure costs and productivity losses for people with disabilities, which exceeds $300 billion, can be understood as a result of too little attention to the other health needs of these individuals by health providers.
