Health board launches anti-smoking contest

ODILE NELSON

Nunavik’s health board hopes to entice Inuit into making non-smoking resolutions in the New Year by offering more than $20,000 in prizes during a six-week quit-smoking contest this spring.

Nunavik’s first ever “Quit to Win Challenge” doesn’t start until March 1. But the health board hopes prizes such as a $5,000 co-op shopping spree for the winning adult, a trip for four to Montreal for the winning family, $1,000 in cash for the winning youth, and $5,000 worth of new equipment for the winning school will persuade Nunavimmiut to register now.

Kathy Snowball, who heads the health board’s tobacco portfolio, organized the competition with the help of Merryl Hammond, a public health nurse and writer of smoking-cessation manuals.

Snowball said she’s hopeful the prizes will help reduce Nunavik’s alarming smoking rate.

“In Nunavik the smoking rate is the highest in Canada and we’d like our fellow Inuit to be successful,” Snowball said. “We welcome everyone to enter the contest and we wish them the best of success.”

The contest rules are based on a successful anti-smoking challenge called “J’arrete, j’y gagne,” held for the past three years in southern Quebec.

The annual competition drew more than 38,000 participants last year. Southern competitors agreed to quit smoking for six weeks and relied on a non-smoking partner to offer emotional support.

Participants were also allowed to use smoking-cessation aids like Zyban.

Those who quit for six weeks entered their names into a draw for a variety of prizes. But before the competition’s organizers handed out any prizes, winners had to undergo saliva tests to prove they had not smoked a single cigarette over the required six-week period.

According to the southern contest’s organizers, a public health group called Acti-med, about 30 per cent of competitors maintain their non-smoking ways a year after the competition ends.

The competition that Snowball and Hammond designed for Nunavik is similar to its southern counterpart, but the pair changed some rules to suit Nunavik’s unique smoking issues.

For example, in the south where only about 25 per cent of adults smoke, only smokers may participate, and they must register with a non-smoking partner who will offer encouragement over the often grueling six weeks.

The southern competition is also open only to adults. But in Nunavik seven out of every 10 adults smoke and many youth begin smoking when they are between the ages of six and 10.

So Snowball and Hammond have opened the competition to all adult James Bay beneficiaries living in Nunavik — whether they’re non-smokers, ex-smokers or smokers — to acknowledge the courage it takes to remain a non-smoker in Nunavik.

They added a youth category for Nunavimmiut aged eight to 17, with categories for families, schools and even communities, to reflect the full extent of tobacco addiction in the North.

They also removed the requirement for registered partners to be non-smokers.

In an interview this week, Hammond acknowledged that, at first, she herself was a little concerned about using prizes to promote non-smoking. She also said she recognizes that some people may relapse after the competition ends.

But she said if the competition has even a small effect on reducing Nunavik’s staggering smoking rate then she will regard it as a success.

“If this competition encourages people to only try for a day or a week that’s step one…. If you only do it for the competition, that may be the wrong reason, but it’s a step in healing,” Hammond said.

“And some people are going to get lucky. Some are going to quit for life because of this competition and that’s a huge gift. I’m actually quite happy with it now.”

The health board will start distributing registration forms and booklets on how to quit smoking next week. The materials will be available at nursing stations, schools, municipal offices and local Northern and co-op stores.