Anti-Tobacco Campaigns

Leaders and Their Roles

Leaders have critical roles in ensuring the provision of the best possible services to their respective communities. Institutional and community leaders have to think critically through in-depth analysis of various situations and evaluation of key objectives. Institutional leaders must develop strategies that not only impact on the organization but also in the community within which the institution is based. For instance, an institution can develop cooperate social responsibility programs that contribute towards the enhancement of the community’s health objectives such as the creation of community health centers (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). Meanwhile, community leaders have a critical role in ensuring the implementation of strategies and the development of programs and initiatives aimed at community development.

Intervention Solutions

Intervention strategies aimed at mitigating the incidence of tobacco smoking require applied and basic implementation and dissemination strategies. There are significant challenges towards this endeavor in the form of financial and budgetary shortfalls for anti-tobacco campaigns. Additionally, challenges have presented in the assimilation of various clinical research from laboratories and into real applications in the world in a more efficient and effective approach to inform coherent smoking cessation strategies (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). A significant smoking research implementation challenge is reaching and intervening on target populations that are not motivated to quit. This includes those with disproportionate high prevalence rates of smoking and disease burden such as the poor ethnic minorities.

Governmental Initiatives

Through governmental initiatives such as the enactment and implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, various anti-smoking initiatives and smoking cessation projects have been able to access funds to acquire relevant resources aimed at the reduction of smoking prevalence (National Cancer Institute, 2010). Additionally, various county governments and states have taken the initiative in making budgetary allocations aimed at promoting anti-smoking campaigns. Significantly, the implementation of fiscal policies such as increment of cigarette prices has led to a decrease in the number of cigarette smokers.

Conclusion

Smoking has been credited with the highest number of preventable deaths in the United States. Significantly, smoking and the inhalation of secondary smoking have been among the leading causes of increased lung cancer prevalence. Therefore, there is a critical need for the implementation of strategic measures, which will address not only the existing smokers but also the causal factors that lead individuals more so young adults to tobacco smoking.

These strategies will attempt to motivate the current smokers to cease smoking and prevent those who have not taken up smoking or are contemplating taking up smoking, to desist from doing so. These strategies should entail health education, the creation of jobs and public awareness of the impacts of smoking among others.

References

American Lung Association. (2013). Lung cancer fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.lung.org/lung-disease/lung-cancer/resources/facts-figures/lung-cancer-fact-sheet.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010). Community Health Assessment and Group Evaluation (CHANGE) action guide: Building a foundation of knowledge to prioritize community needs. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthycommunitiesprogram/tools/change/pdf/changeactionguide.pdf

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011). Vital signs: current cigarette smoking among adults aged ≥18 years --- United States, 2005—2010. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6035a5.htm?s_cid=%20mm6035a5.htm_w

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2013). Adult cigarette smoking in the United States: Current estimate. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/

Freedman, K. S., Nelson, N. M., & Feldman, L. L. (2012). Smoking initiation among young adults in the United States and Canada, 1998-2010: A systematic review. Preventing Chronic Disease, 9, 1-14. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2012/pdf/11_0037.pdf

National Cancer Institute. (2010). American Recovery & Reinvestment Act at NCI: Advancing the science of smoking cessation interventions through recovery act funding. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.gov/aboutnci/recovery/communityimpact/smokingcessation