Dangers of Passive Smoking to Children and Unborn Babies (HSH704)

This report presents a comprehensive communication strategy focused on the dangers of passive smoking to children and unborn babies. It defines passive smoking, differentiating between mainstream and sidestream smoke, and highlights the severe health consequences, including respiratory infections, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome. The report emphasizes the vulnerability of unborn babies to passive smoke, which can lead to developmental issues, low birth weight, and prematurity. The author outlines objectives to raise public awareness, control tobacco emissions, and increase anti-tobacco programs in schools. Stakeholders, including families, media, cancer councils, and public health experts, are identified, along with communication methods like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. The report includes a social media strategy, risk management plan, and metrics for evaluating the communication's effectiveness. The author advocates for smoking bans and emphasizes the need for community education and support to mitigate the risks of secondhand smoke exposure.

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Dangers Associated With Passive Smoking to Children and Unborn Babies
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Professor’s Name
City
Date

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Background
Passive smoking can be defined as the involuntary inhalation of the smoke from
cigarettes or marijuana that is smoked by other people. On the other hand, it is breathing in the
secondhand smoke. The second smoke usually remains in the air after the products of tobacco
have extinguished which can cause or increase the health effects such as respiratory infections,
cancer, and asthma. Conversely, the United States Environmental Protection Agency classified
passive smoking as the agent of causing cancer (Britton et al., 2016). This communication
strategy will highlight the dangers which are associated with passive smoking to the infants
along with children.
There are two types of smoking which are mainstream and sidestream smoke. As an
illustration, the smoke that is exhaled by the smoker is referred to as mainstream smoke. On the
other hand, the sidestream smoke is that smoke released at the end of the cigarette. In various
researches, it has been proved that secondhand smokers are at the verge of getting serious
respiratory problems including meningitis, lung cancer, and asthma. The reason is passive
smokers are exposed to similar carcinogens as smokers. Prolonged exposures can lead to severe
health problems and even death in some cases.
Accordingly, research states that whenever a pregnant woman is exposed to smoke, two
lives are at threat of getting severe health issue. She is at higher risk of chest infection, lung
cancer, miscarriage, sudden infant death, and leukemia. Hence pregnant women should be extra
careful. The legislative authorities are taking steady steps to reduce the health risks of passive
smoking. In 2007, smoking in public areas such as college campuses, hotels, parks, and bars was
made illegal. This helped a lot is not just reducing the health risks on non-smokers but also the
number of habitual smokers was dropped to some extent (Ukawa et al., 2017).

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This campaign awareness has also been made a crucial issue to educate communities
everywhere by the epidemiological statistics. Under those circumstances, severe asthma attacks,
respiratory infections, ear infections, and sudden infant death syndrome are some of the health
effects that arise when children along with the unborn babies are exposed to passive smoking. As
per the estimations of EPA, it is said that around 150,000 cases of lower respiratory tract
infections in infants together with young children up to 18 months of age are attributable to
passive smoke exposure.
My Objectives
My main objective in this communication strategy is to simply raise awareness in public
about the risks of second hands smoking to children and unborn nannies. As an illustration,
communication usually has a significant impact on society when there is a need to pass a
message. Communication that is done properly can result in positive effects on society (Hamza
and Al Hussein, 2018).
I am therefore warning the public about risks of second hand smoking on children and the
unborn. Am also trying to control the contents together with the emissions of the tobacco
products. There is very strong evidence which states that Tobacco has almost 4,000 chemical
substances and around 50 of them are usually carcinogens. In that case, it is the only information
that remains to be the key element of confronting the epidemic use of tobacco. This will also
help the young generation to dissipate the perceptions like smoking makes them digital and
attractive. Am also targeting in increasing the anti-tobacco policies together with programs in
schools. This is because the school provides the best chance of reaching children with the anti-
tobacco education in a more understandable manner.

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For unborn babies, passive smoking can slow down the development of their lungs.
Passive smoking can make the unborn vulnerable to air pollution and also increase the chances
of low birth weight and prematurity which can lead to lung complications. The children along
with babies that are exposed to passive smoking can develop asthma or severe to an asthma
attack. The children can also develop infections such as bronchiolitis, develop an ear infection
and also be at risk of sudden infant death syndrome (Fernández-Plata, Rojas-Martínez, Martínez-
Briseño, García-Sancho and Pérez-Padilla 2016).
Am trying to enlighten people to understand the repercussions of second hand smoking to
children and the unborn babies. I will also urge parents to reduce the access of the tobacco
products to minors since the opposite can encourage young children to even smoke. In that case,
smoke banning can serve it better. Smoking bans will help encourage young children to avoid
cigarettes and may help smokers quit smoking. There are studies showing that towns, where
smoking bans in public places were in place and strongly enforced, had a significant effect on
adolescents not smoking. Studies also show that adolescents who live in smoke-free homes were
74% as likely to become smokers as compared to those who lived in smoking home. So
adolescents becoming smokers are more affected by others smoking in public and peer pressure
than their parents being smokers.
I believe an individual should continue to have the right to smoke in the privacy of their
homes or vehicles, but it should not be their right to expose other around them to the unwanted
health associated risks.
The entities that would be the most negatively affected are the tobacco industry itself and
the government because they would be at risk of losing billions of dollars in sales and taxes
every year. So with that being said, even though tax dollars may be lost and the tobacco industry

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could suffer, I feel smoking bans would be beneficial to society as a whole due to the terrible
health associated risks that come from even the slightest exposure. Accordingly, between 7,500
and 15,000 results in hospitalization. It is therefore unfortunate that more than 1,000 infant
deaths annually are related to smoking during pregnancy (Davis et al., 2016). There is an
objective different firms for tobacco cessation in the coming years and educated every
individuals within every community the risks of passive smoking.
The Stakeholders Engagement
My stakeholders for the dangers associated with second hand smoking to children
and unborn babies are as highlighted below.
I. Families: To take good care of their children along with the unborn babies against
passive smoking. They should also be aware of the dangers if their children are
exposed to passive smoking.
II. Media: I need the support from media so that I can be able to deliver my message
on the dangers of passive smoking and what parents and the entire community
should do to avoid that
III. Cancer Councils: To put necessary measures on how children with cancer due to
passive smoking can be assisted.
IV. Community: I want to educate the community about the repercussions of second
hand smoking to children and unborn babies. Accordingly, I want to enhance their
knowledge to take necessary measures against passive smoking.
V. Aged care facilities: to provide advanced technology for the children and unborn
babies who are affected by passive smoking.

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VI. Environmental sustainability: To put necessary measures against passive
smoking. Furthermore, to mandate asthma screening in children.
VII. McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer: To implement some rules such as banning
smoking in the public
VIII. Public Health experts: To enable access to health training and enlighten the public
about the dangers of tobacco smoking
I will communicate with all my stakeholders by using my Twitter account, YouTube, and
Facebook. YouTube videos can deliver my message efficiently because of the high number of
YouTube users.

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Metrics
Community
families
Environmental
sustainability
Aged care facilities
McCabe Centre for
Law and Cancer
Cancer councils
Media
General public
Public Health experts
LOW INTEREST HIGH
HIGH POWER

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I will evaluate the performance of my communication strategy by looking at the numbers
of likes and retweets, the reviews along with feedbacks. I will then be in a position to know how
my plan has performed and how the public is taking my campaign awareness on the dangers of
passive smoking to children and unborn babies. Furthermore, I will use twitter handle to
communicate the dangers of passive smoking to children and the unborn babies and hence state
the recommendations that should be put in place to avoid such effects. If people will second my
points and even suggest what should be done too then, I will be able to know my communication
strategy has been influential.
Social Strategy
Technology has become such a large part of everyday life, and with it came social media.
There are more channels for social media that can be counted on two hands. Each of these
avenues offers something unique to the marketing world. Social media has become one of the

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most used and most profitable marketing strategies (Macacu, Autier, Boniol and Boyle 2015).
There are always some areas to be considerate of when working in a new marketing medium and
as always there are some substantial benefits to a new marketing medium.
Social media has provided marketing a new avenue to build customer loyalty, brand
recognition, lower marketing costs, and hear what the target market has to say. There are areas
to be careful of and ensure they are done right to keep from losing any following that you may
have (Numaguchi et al., 2016). With the right steps and social media can be a company’s ticket
to the next level.
I utilized the twitter account to publicize about the dangers that are associated with
passive smoking to children and the unborn babies. I opened a twitter account and named it
@Passive Smoking. Twitter has a lot of users, and every day millions of people visit Twitter and
get notifications from Twitter. However, social media is also known to improve awareness of
different campaigns and also increase the number of visitors (Loffredo et al., 2018).
The law of compounding is a significant role in social media marketing strategy being
productive (Jayes et al., 2016). When you are posting quality content that builds your followers,
the followers will then retweets the content with their followers through the many different
avenues of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, or email chains. To have
your content shared and reposted it needs to be quality (Heude et al., 2015). The quality content
with the dialog and presence that the organization provides on those posts and the discussions
create new points for search engines such as Google and Yahoo to highlight the company name.
The entry points could grow to hundreds or thousands of more potential ways for people to find
you online and this is precisely what I intend to do with my twitter account.

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Posting my campaign on Twitter can connect me with people that can help to spread my
drive on the risks of second hand smoking to the unborn babies and children. I also chose Twitter
to maximize cost effectiveness. Twitter also has excellent search engine visibility. In that case, if
post my campaign on twitter then it can easily be searched and found, unlike other platforms that
have poor SEO.

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