Tobacco use

A Practice Guide that supports providers in diverse contexts to start a converstaion with women about their smoking and the possibility of quitting. Draws largely from Motivational Interviewing – an evidence-based communication style to support change – to translate women-centred principles into practice.

A companion piece to this guide is under development: a compendium of facts and issues related to women and smoking for local, national and global audiences. Please also see BCCEWH work on women and tobacco at www.expectingtoquit.ca and www.coalescing-vc.org/virtualLearning/section4/default.htm

Summarizes the results of a study on the feasibility of integrating tobacco treatment and support within mental health, addictions and sexual violence services, in a gender informed way. The study included focus groups with service providers and with smokers, and a review of the literature on tobacco cessation in the mental health, substance use, and trauma treatment fields. Found that smokers who use mental health, substance use, and sexual violence services are generally knowledgeable about the harms of smoking, and the majority are interested in quitting.

A website based on the information from the second edition of the report, Expecting to Quit: a best practices review of smoking cessation interventions for pregnant and postpartum girls and women, aimed at physicians and other health care providers who work with pregnant and postpartum girls and women, as well as an array of resources for pregnant and postpartum women who want to reduce or quit smoking.

The 2^nd edition of the best practices review of smoking cessation interventions for pregnant and postpartum girls and women contains the most recent recommendations on best practices for reducing or eliminating smoking during pregnancy. Reviews research and intervention development in the years since the first edition was published in 2003, and reflects recent emerging interventions and better practices with a variety of groups of pregnant and postpartum women, with an added section on high-risk populations of pregnant smokers.

Assesses evidence of the effectiveness of three aspects of tobacco control policy (sales restrictions, restrictions on location of smoking, and taxation and pricing), and the extent to which these tobacco control policies are gender-biased and have a differential impact on three vulnerable populations of male and female smokers.  Assesses the impact and consequences of these tobacco control policies on males and females of people living on low income, Aboriginal people, and adolescents.

Provides a picture of women’s tobacco use in different social contexts, identifes the health effects of tobacco, and describes women’s role in tobacco production and marketing.

In response to the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) women’s life expectancy study which revealed that respiratory systems diseases are the 3rd leading cause of death for women ages 65-74 in British Columbia, this is a review of 137 articles and other relevant documents discussing sex and gender issues for women’s respiratory disease and health, including grey literature reports.

This review provides a global overview of the historical and contemporary uses and impacts of medico-legal evidence in cases of sexual assault of adolescents and adults. It examines the existing peer-reviewed scholarly and grey literature from high-, low- and middle-income regions, presents findings from studies that have evaluated the legal impact of medico-legal evidence in sexual assault cases and discusses factors that may create barriers to the successful use of evidence in criminal justice proceedings. The review concludes with a summary, identifies salient knowledge gaps and unpublished materials

This policy brief, aimed at national and international policy-makers and nongovernmental organizations, shows how a gender-sensitive approach can be incorporated into tobacco control policies, making existing instruments such as the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control more effective.

This discussion paper examines issues related to tobacco control policy, taxation, and legislation as they affect Aboriginal women and men in BC, and identifies potentially differential impacts when gender differences are taken into account.