Albany-Area Summit Will Help Workers in New York State to Quit for Good

Free Summit Tomorrow Part of Effort to Increase Access to Smoking-Cessation Programs in the Workplace

BUFFALO, NY — The second of three statewide ActionToQuit summits is coming to the Albany area Tuesday, October 5. Free to attend, this collaboration with the New York State Smokers’ Quitline, to be held from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at Carondelet Hospitality Center, will bring local, regional and statewide businesses and health plans together. Input from these broad-based forums will be used to develop a model that will help employers across the state to provide smoking-cessation resources for their employees.

Among the organizations planning to participate are MVP; CDPHP; Li Destri Foods; the American Cancer Society; and the American Heart Association.

“In New York State, smoking-related healthcare costs and lost productivity total $14.2 billion annually,” said Patricia Bax, Marketing Coordinator at the New York Smokers’ Quitline, which is based at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. “The ActionToQuit summit will provide businesses with an opportunity to learn how providing smoking-cessation health benefits to employees can save money. Businesses will learn how to help their bottom lines and help their employees to become healthier at the same time.”

The New York State Smokers’ Quitline, which is funded by the New York State Department of Health, is spearheading the New York State ActionToQuit project, which is funded by a Partnership for Prevention award. The goal of the summits is to set the framework for having cessation treatment coverage provided as a core benefit through all New York State health plans, ensuring that all commercially insured and Medicaid- insured New York smokers will have access to cessation treatment for their quit attempts.

The daylong Albany summit will be held at the Carondelet Hospitality Center, 385 Watervliet-Shaker Road, Latham. The first ActionToQuit summit was held in Buffalo on September 28, and a third summit will follow in New York City on December 1. As part of the second phase of the initiative, grants (including mini-grants to individual businesses) will be awarded to implement best practices statewide and nationwide.

Walk-in attendees are welcome. For more information about the ActionToQuit challenge in New York, go to http://www.nysmokefree.com/NYSAction/PublicPage1.aspx.

The mission of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is to understand, prevent and cure cancer. Roswell Park, founded in 1898, was one of the first cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute- designated comprehensive cancer center and remains the only facility with this designation in Upstate New York. The Institute is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading cancer centers; maintains affiliate sites; and is a partner in national and international collaborative programs. For more information, visit Roswell Park’s website at http://www.roswellpark.org, call 1- 877-ASK-Roswell Park (1-877-275-7724) or email AskRoswell@Roswellpark.org.