Dental Professionals: Help Your Patients Quit Smoking

You can play a key role in fighting tobacco use, the number one cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. You see smoking-related damage in your patients’ mouths every day. You know the impact it has on their overall health as well. And your patients trust advice and information you give them to stay healthy.

When it comes to talking to patients about quitting tobacco use, the Tips From Former Smokers^® (Tips^®) campaign can be a conversation starter. The campaign offers resources for you as well as your patients. With the support of CDC’s materials, you can help more patients live smokefree lives.

How to Help Your Patients Quit Smoking

The following resources, including FAQs and free training, can help you learn more:

• Fact Sheet about Tips [PDF – 250 KB] and how dental professionals can get involved and support patients.
• Free continuing education training for up to 4.5 CEs, entitled “Smoking Cessation for Pregnancy and Beyond: A Virtual Clinic”
• FAQs for Health Care Providers
• FAQs about how quitlines work and their effectiveness
• Medscape Video, Conducting a Brief 2A Tobacco Intervention featuring Tim McAfee, MD, senior medical officer to CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. This video shares the steps that you can take to conduct brief interventions with your patients.
• ADA-certified online dental course, produced by the Maricopa County Health Department in Arizona, that can help you learn how to help your patients

Resources for Your Patients and Practice

To help you in this important work, you can:

• Print “Reasons to Quit Smoking” [PDF – 1M] and give it to your smoking patients.
• Download “Talk With Your Dental Team” posters to inspire your patients to quit (in English or Spanish). Hang them in your dental practice or office, where patients will see them every day.
• Download videos, print ads, radio ads, and other Tips campaign materials from the Tips Download Center for use in your waiting room.
• Order free notepads (with the 1-800-QUIT-NOW quitline number and CDC logo) to use in your dental office (enter “notepad” in search bar on publication catalog web page).
• Use Brett and Felicita from Tips ads as examples of what can happen to patients, to explain how smoking is linked to gum disease and tooth loss.
• Suggest that your patients visit the How to Quit Smoking page on the Tips web site. Link to it from your practice’s Web site.
• Let your patients know that they can get free quit help by calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669) or 1-855-DÉJELO-YA (1-855-335-3569) (for Spanish speakers).

Professional Resources

• American Dental Association – Smoking and Tobacco Cessation
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