Brussels, 30/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission would appear to be pretty happy with its “Ex-smokers are Unstoppable” campaign that was launched in 2011 to help young adults quit smoking.
On Ex-smokers Day, 30 October, the Commission revealed that 450,000 had used iCoach, the digital health coach, to help them stub out the habit. And more than 10,000 had taken to social media over the last three weeks to “light a sparkler on the digital map of Europe” to celebrate their achievement.
The campaign seeks to help 24-35 year-olds stop smoking. The initiative is built largely around the digital health coaching platform, iCoach, which promotes the benefits of stopping smoking and sets out five stages to help wean smokers off their dependency.
According to figures presented on 30 October by Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, the campaign has attracted large numbers of people wanting to give up smoking: since it was launched, over 450,000 (with an average age of 33) have signed up with iCoach, and more than a third (36%) stopped smoking within three months. The very latest information indicates that 30,000 new people, including a great many Italians, have downloaded the iCoach programme since its makeover in February of this year.
Responding to EUROPE, Commissioner Andriukaitis stated that the benefits of the campaign far outweigh the costs involved. “The Commission has injected €35 million to finance the ex-smokers campaign since it was launched in 2011. The budget for 2015 is €493,611, or €75 per ex-smoker”, he said, before going on to point out that the cost of smoking to society was estimated at €544 billion in 2009. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)