Community Dental Workers Support Stoptober Campaign In East Yorkshire

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Community dental workers are working with local businesses and other health professionals to promote the Stoptober campaign, which launches across the UK today.

Stoptober is designed to encourage people to give up smoking for October and is based on research, which suggests that if you can give up for 28 days, you’re 5 times more likely to quit for good. The campaign is being supported by businesses, dentists and GP surgeries all over the UK in a bid to reduce the number of sick days and lower the number of people affected by health complications directly linked to smoking.

Joanne Nejrup, a specialist dental nurse from the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, said that smokers face an elevated risk of oral health problems, including gum disease and smoking is also the leading risk factor for oral cancer. Smokers are also more likely to suffer from bad breath and stained teeth.

In the coming weeks, health officials will be hosting a number of events in venues across the region to encourage people to sign up and take on the Stoptober challenge. A team of dental and public health workers will be visiting Howden, Withernsea, Driffield and Goole and Wilma, the Stoptober mascot, will be visiting Hull city centre on the 16th, 17th and 18th October.

Director of public health in Hull, Julia Weldon, said that Stoptober is the perfect opportunity for people who have been thinking of giving up to sign up and try to give up for 28 days. Last year, more than 2,000 people took up the challenge in the East Riding and organisers are hoping for even more signatures this year.

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