People with mental illness are three times more likely to smoke, and experts say not enough is being done to help them quit.
A new Access Economics report shows almost 1.3 million Australians with a mental illness are smokers, costing A$33 billion ($37 billion) a year.
SANE Australia,
which commissioned the report, is calling for urgent action to introduce quit smoking programs and supports for people with a mental illness.
Executive director Barbara Hocking said smokers with a mental illness paid about $2.8 billion every year in tobacco taxes, but there was little evidence of equitable funding and few programs to help the large numbers who wanted to quit.
"Smoking is a huge physical and financial burden for people with a mental illness, and our research has shown very clearly how much it's costing us to do nothing," Ms Hocking said. "While quit programs have successfully reduced smoking rates generally, people with a mental illness have been largely ignored - with a few notable exceptions - despite evidence they respond well to targeted campaigns."
The report shows that people with mental illness make up 38 per cent of all smokers. People with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are three times more likely to smoke than other Australians.
This group also tends to smoke more heavily than others, buying 42 per cent of the cigarettes sold in Australia each year.
Ms Hocking said while people living with a mental illness were acknowledged in some policy documents, no state governments had developed coordinated cessation services to support them. "We welcome [Labor's] commitment to the National Tobacco Strategy and call on all Australian governments, quit organisations, mental health services and relevant health agencies to implement SANE's recommendations," she said.
- AAP
