The easiest win

‘There’s so much to be gained by getting tobacco harm reduction to the highest-risk groups,’ says David MacKintosh, director at Knowledge·Action·Change, which runs the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction project. And one of the highest-risk groups of all is the rough sleeping population. While smoking rates in the UK have been falling for decades now, it’s estimated that up to 85 per cent of homeless people still smoke – more than six times the rate in the general population. Not just that, but they’re smoking in riskier ways.