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Jonathan Foulds, PhD

Joined: 12/13/2010

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Jonathan Foulds, PhD. is a Professor of Public Health Sciences at Penn State University, College of Medicine. After obtaining a first class honors degree in psychology at University of Aberdeen in Scotland, he trained as a clinical psychologist at the University of Glasgow, and then spent most of his career developing and evaluating methods to help smokers beat their addiction to tobacco. He obtained his PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London and then worked at St George's Hospital Medical School as the UK's first "lecturer in tobacco addiction". He then moved to University of Surrey and continued to work as a principal clinical psychologist at Broodmoor Hospital, a large maximum security facility for mentally disordered offenders. He was on the Management Group of the Hungarian Anti-Smoking Campaign (1995-6), has been a technical leader of a World Health Organization project to improve the regulation of tobacco dependence treatment in Europe (2000), and was Director of Research for the UK charity, Quit, which ran the largest telephone helpline for smokers in the world at that time. He was a founding member and Vice President of the Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence (ATTUD) 2004-6. Dr Foulds has received funding support on grants totaling well over $7 million from a various public and private organizations (including New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, CDC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). He has worked as a paid consultant for a number of agencies involved in promoting health, including pharmaceutical companies involved in production of tobacco dependence treatment medications (e.g. Pfizer, GSK, Novartis). He has been invited to speak on smoking cessation in over 15 countries, and has published over 80 papers on tobacco and health in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He continues to treat addicted smokers, teach on smoking cessation and conduct research on tobacco and health at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA.

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Now Tobacco Has Killed My Big Brother

http://ajhpcontents.org/doi/full/10.4278/ajhp.27.3.iv?utm...

The following article is a personal account by Michael O'Donnell and published...

Posted by Jonathan Foulds, PhD

http://ajhpcontents.org/doi/full/10.4278/ajhp.27.3.iv?utm...

The following article is a personal account by Michael O'Donnell and published in the American Journal of Health Promotion :
I have to leave in a few hours to go to Kevin's funeral. We greet people at 10, mass starts at 11, and then we go to the cemetery to bury Kevin next to my dad. Kevin has already been cremated. Brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends started coming to town a few days ago. We are trying to focus on celebrating Kevin's life and supporting each other, but mainly we just feel sadâ€¦empty. At least that's the way I feel. I have been anticipating, fearing, this day for decades.
Kevin started smoking in high school, maybe in junior high. He had the usual stimulantsâ€¦parents, uncles, neighbors all smoked and cigarettes were easy to find.
I started worrying about Kevin's smoking when I was in college, after my parents had quit smoking, when I really understood the health impact. My reasons for wanting him to quit were selfish; I just did not want to bury Kevin at such a young ageâ€¦i.e., so early in MY life. I talked to Kevin about quitting smoking for decadesâ€¦until he wouldn't listen any more. He was a tough case for meâ€¦so smartâ€¦valedictorian of his high school class, the first person I ever met who got an 800 on his SATs. He had an answer for everything I said. A couple of years ago, he told me that smoking a cigarette helped him control his "explosive emotional disorder." Kevin was always very kind—in fact, I cannot remember ever seeing him angry—but apparently he lost his temper sometimes, for reasons he could not understand. He said he could feel these emotions building in advance, have a cigarette, and then feel them dissipate. Then again, maybe this was just one of those intellectual mazes he had constructed in his mind to explain to himself why he smoked.
Kevin actually did quit smoking last fall, just over a year ago. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer, his doctor told him to quit, and he quit. He used a combination of nicotine replacement therapy and Wellbutrin. He was complaining about the Wellbutrin; it clouded his thinking and made it difficult for him to writeâ€¦his passion in life. I told him that the doctors probably wanted him to keep taking Wellbutrin to make sure he did not pick up a cigarette; maybe it had something to do with controlling his explosive emotional disorder. He said,"Don't worry, I am NOT going to smoke again." I asked how he was so sure, and he said, "Because I will die if I smoke." I was floored. How could he have smoked for nearly 50 years if he was concerned about dying? Somehow, after all our discussions, he did not believe that tobacco would kill him until he got lung cancer and his cancer doctor told him so. Did I forget to tell him that obvious fact? Did he construct another intellectual puzzle in his mind to convince himself that he would be THE ONE who escaped the very predictable path from tobacco to early death? I ask these questions because I don't want to go through this again. I don't want to lose another person I love to tobacco. Maybe I should have been more selfish in my discussions with Kevin, not focusing so much on my concerns for him, and instead telling him I did not want to bury him at such a young ageâ€¦in MY life.
When tobacco killed my younger brother 2 years ago, I was inspired to write a scholarly essay summarizing the complex causes of smoking and strategies to help people quit.1 Today, I am just tired of losing people I love to tobacco. I feel empty losing Kevin. This is how everyone feels when they lose someone to tobacco. If you know someone who smokes, please tell them that you have a friend who lost two brothers to smoking. Ask them to quit for you, so that you don't lose them so early in YOUR life.
Reproduced with permission. Michael O'Donnell, (2013) Now Tobacco Has Killed My Big Brother. American Journal of Health Promotion: January/February 2013, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. iv-v. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4278/ajhp.27.3.iv
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New online electronic cigarette survey - PSU.

https://redcap.ctsi.psu.edu/redcap/surveys/?s=v94cbA

Researchers from Penn State University are conducting an online survey to...

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President Obama congratulates quitter on GASO

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/11/17/president-obama...

President Obama congratulates those quitting on Great American Smokeout .

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News item about electronic cigarette study.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejcnzho95FA

Video news item about e-cig study .

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UK inquiry into death of electronic cigarette user

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWizH6ZYvtA

This links to BBC coverage of the inquiry into the death of a man in...

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FDA: Menthol makes it harder to quit smoking

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/18/health/main2004...

Today the FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) met for...

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Quitlines to help smokers quit. 1-800 QUITNOW

http://www.smokefree.gov

The recent SRNT conference in Toronto included some interesting presentations...

Posted by Jonathan Foulds, PhD

http://www.smokefree.gov

The recent SRNT conference in Toronto included some interesting presentations on the effects of quitlines and attempts to get more smokers to use them. Although about 65% of U.S. smokers are aware that telephone quitlines are available, only about 9% of smokers have ever called one, and in the United States only about 1% of smokers call each year. Dr Jessie Saul of the North American Quitline Consortium reported that in states that spend more on promotion, there is a much higher utilization rate (eg over 6% of smokers calling per year), and it is widely known that quitline calls spike dramatically when the phone number is publicized or when free nicotine replacement therapy is offered along with counseling.
So I thought that I should do my bit to remind you all of the services provided by quitlines, and encourage you to make use of them. Most developed countries, and every state in the United States provides a free telephone counseling service for smokers who want to quit. In the U.S. you can access your local state quitline by calling the national number: 1-800-QUITNOW (1-800-784-8669). The services will almost always be able to answer simple questions about stopping smoking, but most provide a more helpful service in which they will do an assessment interview, arrange a quit plan, including a quit date, and will then call you back at arranged times to help guide you through your quitting process. The quitlines are typically able to arrange 4 call-back calls, and in some states they are also able to supply free nicotine patches. The people at the end of the phone (quitline counselors) are trained smoking cessation counselors, and there is good evidence that people who enroll in and use telephone counseling have a better chance of successfully quitting than those who do not.
So I would encourage all smokers who are thinking of quitting to call 1-800 QUITNOW (or the national quitline number in your country) and take advantage of this free service. I would also be interested to hear comments from those who have called telephone quitlines.View Thread

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Livestrong Smart Phone App for Smoking Cessation

http://www.livestrong.com/quit-smoking-app

There are now a number of applications for smart-phones that are designed to...

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Effect of smoking on Looks

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/quit-smoking/articlep...

I thought some may be interested in/motivated by this article on the effects...

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Becomeanex.org

http://www.becomeanex.org

Another excellent smoking cessation website is www.becomeanex.org . I like...

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