Smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and disease in Australia.

We developed the innovative campaign ‘Start the conversation’, which challenges health professionals to raise the topic of smoking with their patients. 

Start the conversation patients

What our patients are saying

Start the conversation shares authentic stories about real patients and clinicians. These stories are about the life-changing conversations patients had with their health professionals that led them to stop smoking.
Start the Conversation project

Project Background & Contact

Start the conversation was developed as part of the larger Supporting Patients to be Smokefree Project. It aimed to ensure all people who access the Victorian health system and are asked about their smoking and offered support to quit.

It’s time to start the conversation.

Advice from a health professional is one of the most effective ways to encourage people to quit: one in every 33 conversations will lead to a patient successfully quitting smoking.*

Start the conversation challenges health professionals to raise the topic of smoking with their patients. The stories on this site are about real patients and clinicians. They share their experiences about the life-changing conversations that resulted in people quitting smoking.

*Stead L., Bergson G., Lancaster T. Physician advice for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2008; (2): CD000165

This project was led by Alfred Health and funded by the Victorian Department of Health.

Partners