Tackling Indigenous Smoking

Tackling Indigenous Smoking (TIS) rates is part of Quit's long-term commitment to Aboriginal programs.

What are TIS activities

Tackling Indigenous Smoking (TIS) activities take a population health approach which aims to inform and support people in their decisions not to smoke or vape and/or to quit smoking or vaping. These activities will:

• Encourage Community engagement in and support for local TIS activities
• Increase Community understanding of the dangers of smoking and chewing tobacco and the links between tobacco and chronic disease, as well as the dangers of e-cigarettes and vaping
• Increase awareness of the pathways to quitting among workers and Community leaders
• Seek to reduce exposure to secondhand and thirdhand smoke
• Improve access to targeted support to quit through clinical and non-clinical services
• Encourage and facilitate use of Quitline for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

TIS-funded organisations are part of an overall preventive health system. Access to clinical best practices (behavioural and pharmacological) will help people who smoke increase their likelihood of quitting successfully.

A TIS-funded organisation that has clinical services might offer some of these activities itself. Developing referral pathways to the services available locally, whether your own or another service, is a central part of TIS work. Such services include:

• Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT)
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Quitline support
• Smoking and vaping cessation counselling
• Developing skills and training opportunities for their staff and other organisations to be able to deliver brief intervention.

TIS-funded organisations develop and implement smokefree policies within their own organisation and can support other organisations to implement their own smokefree policies.