Public Health Issue: Smoking and Nicotine Abuse in the United Kingdom

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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
Public Health
Student
Institute
Date
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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Discussion 5
Conclusion 8
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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
Public Health
Introduction
The public health could be defined as an art of science that prevents the disease and promotes a
healthy life of humans by educating them, researching about the diseases and coming up with
policies. Analyzing the population health including the potential threats is the base for public
health. The target audience can be either a group of people or an entire place. In case of a
pandemic like the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 can encompass several continents at one go.
According to the World health organisation, the concept of health takes account into physical,
psychological and social well being, it is not merely the absence of any disease or infirmity.
Public health is an interdisciplinary field and Includes other health Factors required for the public
workers to be in healthy. Depending on the need of the hour, the health professionals are being
employed to take the issue under control
Access to healthcare and public health initiatives are difficult challenges in developing nation
because of the improper infrastructure and excess population.
Identify the public health issue related to your field of practice
Although the United Kingdom is a developed nation, it has suffered from a different pandemic in
the past. The pandemic of the 13th century caused by the bubonic plague which took 200 million
lives and wiped almost half of the world’s population and the recent HIV/AIDS pandemic which
was started in the Democratic Republic of Congo are some of the examples that struck the
United Kingdom.
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Rationale of Chosen Area
Public Health England (PHE) is an agency that is responsible for the protection and
improvement of the nation’s health and to address inequalities. National Health Service (NHS) is
the parent organization of Public Health England.
The major public health issue these days is smoking and nicotine abuse. The smoke is very
harmful to any human tissue that it touches. Carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen
oxides are some of the gases that evolve from smoking. Carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide are
also major pollutants and high doses of it are lethal for lungs (Barua, Mishra and Kumar, 2017).
Smoking can be determined as a health hazard because the cigarette contains an alkaloid called
nicotine with some other harmful chemicals like ammonia, which is a major ingredient for
chemical fertilizer, acrolein and tar, which is used for making roads. Although these are only a
few poisons and the cigarette contains more than 7000 chemicals.
Smoking is defined as the inhaling and exhaling of smoke from tobacco and other drugs and
National Health Service declared smoking as one of the reasons for unavoidable premature
death. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body thereby causing many diseases. Coronary
heart diseases, asthma, cancer in almost every organ including blood, kidney, stomach, pancreas,
lung diseases like chronic bronchitis are the glimpse of diseases caused by smoking. The smoke
is very poisonous and hence can infect any tissue in the body. Every one in three cancer death in
the United Kingdom is because of smoking.
According to research by a professor of the Aristotle University of Greece, Interestingly,
Chernobyl is the most disastrous peacetime nuclear disaster faced by any country.
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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
Discussion
Passive smoking takes place only when a person is not smoking but breed this smoke from the
people who are standing close by and smoking. This can irritation and may ultimately lead to a
lot of health issues including heart problems and lung cancer. If babies or young children are
exposed to tobacco smoke then the effect will be higher than that of an adult. Nicotine can
impact the way the body is able to process the drugs. This can impact the way a drug could
possibly work. If a woman is taking contraceptive pill and smoking then it could lead to the risk
of blood clots. Before taking any medications it is imperative to talk to the doctor how to know if
this suits the body condition. Especially, the pregnant ladies must be extremely careful about
smoking habits and even exposing themselves to the environment and people are smoking. More
than the fact that pregnant women will be e affected due to this, the Unborn baby will have
potential effects that could become a problem in the future developmental stages.
There are certain issues like obesity and smoking that never loses the attention of people about
being one of the National health issues. Since decades the citizens have been tackling the
devastating impact of tobacco and in recent times we have invented so many Methods to stop
smokers from consuming toxic.
The researchers have been working on the order Manali and the smoking forever has dropped up
to 14.9% which means they have been reduced from 19.3% it was statistics 5 years ago.
Regardless of the fact that the the percentages are too small all the fact that there is a growth if
appreciable. Despite their efforts to minimise inequalities, there are still a certain group of people
who smoke regularly and due to which the smoking rates remind high. There are 1.4 million
people who raised up to 25 to 34 Age age for smoking too much, almost 1 in 5 to be specific. on
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the other hand, people who are aged 18 to 24 has shown a decrease. As of 2017, the number of
smokers estimated in the England region is 6.1 million people. There is also avoid in the gap
between people who smoke as a routine and people who smoke during the period of intervals. To
be specific, one in four people who work in routine or manual and keep patience smoke while
one in ten people who are in managerial and professional positions smoke.
The odds of people who work in Manual group for a routine group smoking is more than that of
the people who work in managerial or other employment. on the other hand, the people who are
unemployed smoke twice more than those who smoke and work in a routine or manual position.
People who have no qualifications smoke four times more than all these people and on and
Technical note the picture scenes really complex. In the polar and regions the highest rates of
smokers have been recorded; 27.4%And there are 20. 5% of people who belong to the mixed
race. 21% of the Muslim men and 4% of the women from the same religion have smoking habits.
As compared to these regions, the regions in India have the lowest smoking rates of 5% while
people of Chinese origin have smoking rates of around 8.6%.
the largest sample in the entire population survey allows a confident estimate of smoking rates
in the local regions. Regions like Blackpool and Kingston do record the highest smoking with
making itself one of the highest smoking areas with 22 to maximum 23% of adults smoking. As
compared to Chilton, this is three times higher.
In a survey done by a group regarding opinions and lifestyles, it turns out that 60% of people
who were reported to be smoking continuously have tried to quit. This sums up to 11 million
people. The survey also gives us detailed information about smoking behaviour and intention.
Usually, the people who are smoking have specific intentions to smoke. Stress and pressure are
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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
two of the major reasons why people choose to smoke and the people who smoke find it
relieving. Other than that, people who have friends who are smokers tend to develop this habit
from them. People who smoke as a habitual development or due to stress tend to continue
smoking then the people who smoke without any intentions.
The survey gives important information about how 60% of the smokers say that they plan to quit
and one among 8 people report that they would like to quit smoking in the next 3 months. There
are certain people in the same bro who might want to smoke the first cigarette within 30 minutes
after waking up which means there is tobacco addiction involved and this gives them a better
chance of quitting successfully. Either way, they can always take the help of nurses or
psychologists who help them in finding out specific ways to quit smoking as most of the people
understand how smoking can be harmful and are willing to quit the same. What is also
interesting is that most of the people have decided to quit smoking and did the same themselves
without taking any help from the external sources. However, this is not the same case for
everyone.
Exploration of the size of the health problem
Smoking is a truly crucial public health issue in the United Kingdom which is considered to be
an immediate and serious threat to the citizens. The smoking trend of Great Britain indicates that
the overall gender-specific adults smoking rates have not changed. The age-specific smoking
trends show that approximately 30% of young women are indulged in smoking and similarly
about 30% of young men were found to be regular nicotine abusers.
Smoking harms almost every part in the body thereby causing many diseases. It was estimated
that over 300,000 patients were admitted to NHS hospitals every year suffering from a smoking-
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related illness which roughly translates to 5000-6000 admissions per week and around thousand
admissions per day (Carter, 2014). There are about 100 acute specialist NHS hospitals in the
United Kingdom which means each day around 10 people were admitted in each hospital due to
smoking-related complications.
Health Determinants to Understand
In the United Kingdom, smoking cause about a fifth of all deaths, approximately 80000 each
year, most of which are premature with an average age of 21 years early. Research has also
shown that the smokers not only put their health on stake but also other’s life on a stake in the
form of passive smoking or involuntary smoking (also referred to as second-hand smoke).
Smokers have different excuses to smoke. Some believe that smoking reduces weight or
maintains weight, peer pressure, relieves stress. Other people think that it is a good thing to
smoke whereas young one thinks it is cool to be a smoker. Smoking is known to affect the
biopsychosocial life of an individual as people smoke for different reasons.
Relevance in Health Policies
The smoking-related health issues can be taken under control by joining effective tobacco
control policies and interventions of the designated authority. It is essential to notify the smokers
to acknowledge their social responsibility towards society because the non-smoking people like
their partners, children, and colleagues can be adversely affected. The intervention by the
authority has proved to be successful in the developed nation because of the strict guidelines and
enforcement, for example, the health act of 2007 prohibits smoking in an enclosed workplace.
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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
After the successful implementation of this rule, the British authorities also prohibited smoking
inside taxis, private hire vehicles and in all public buses plying in London.
It is equally important to establish wisely established interventions to discourage smokers,
thereby providing better protection to pregnant women, children, elders and other non-smoking
pupils. Lawmakers should increase the minimum age of legal access to smoking which will
inhibit the youngsters from switching to cigarettes (Krosnick et al., 2017). Media is the most
influential medium these days hence it is important to utilize print and digital media for positive
campaigning of this public issue. Widespread use of Social Media by tech-savvy youths can be
helpful for spreading awareness amongst the youths. Immediate increase in the tobacco product
can significantly decrease its damage, particularly amongst the younger generation.
Regular smokers become heavily reliant upon nicotine intake and therefore seek for certain
individuals for proper counselling and here comes the role of a professional public health nurse.
Public health nurse’s main job is to Involve the community and educate the entire population
about health improvement and illnesses that could be potential threats.
Role of Nurse
Public health nurses take up the challenges within communities and focus on various areas to
keep up the overall health of the general public. Public nurses are an integral part of the control
of smoking. Nurses should be role model when providing education or assistance about smoking.
Nurses are the best personalities to give proper knowledge and counselling. Nurses would ask
about their smoking habits and provide them brochures on the ill effect of smoking and other
necessary information regarding the topic. While counselling they continuously Ask, Assist,
Arrange and Advice. A strategically designed tobacco control program consisting of these
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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
nurses helps in mobilising the major fraction of society and thereby motivating them to
overcome their cigarette smoking habits.
The list of regulations from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
states that the nurses must consult their patients and share some advices about why they should
give up smoking. While the smoking being a critical issue in the society, it is important for the
nurses to take a stand to give the patient, an understanding of the barriers and motivations that
underpin the smoking cessations (O'Loughlin et al., 2014). Furthermore, the nurses must be
aware of the options that would be available to support the patient. There are specific stages and
motivations behind the intentions of a person who smokes. The nurses must strive to increase
their knowledge regarding this and have a greater understanding of the issues that the smokers
usually face. Nurses play a vital role in working on smoking issues. Smoking remains as an
unavoidable cause of multiple health issues. The statistics say that one in two regular smokers
will die out of health issues that are caused by smoking.
Conclusion
Smoking and tobacco abuse is a consistently prevailing global epidemic with deep roots.
Nicotine dependency significantly damages the internal health of any individual which restricts
them to perform many socially acceptable habits (West, 2017). The related effects of smoking
are not confined to smokers but can lead to degradation of nature through air pollution, as
mentioned above; the cigarette smoke has nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide which are the
major greenhouse gases. Teaching non-smokers about the need of avoiding cigarette smoke are
equally necessary because of the associated health risks.
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Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
Apart from the micro-level preventive measure, authorities should also focus upon setting up of
smoking chambers and rooms in the public places to facilitate the smokers. Estimates show that
smoking increase the chances of getting coronary heart disease by 4 times, chances of getting
cardiac arrest by 3 times and chances of developing lung cancer by 25 times. Smoking can also
affect the quality of men’s sperm and can increase the risk of birth miscarriages in women.
Smoking is injurious to health hence integrated practical intervention is required by the general
public. The cons of smoking are much more than the pros hence it is advisable to stop smoking.
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References
Barua, M., Mishra, V. And Kumar, S. (2017). Reducing adolescent smoking in India. The Lancet
Global Health, 5(3), p.e266.
Carter, D. (2014). Quitting Smoking Also Improves Mental Health. AJN, American Journal of
Nursing, 114(5), p.19.
Krosnick, J., Malhotra, N., Mo, C., Bruera, E., Chang, L., Pasek, J. And Thomas, R. (2017).
Perceptions of health risks of cigarette smoking: A new measure reveals widespread
misunderstanding. PLOS ONE, 12(8), p.e0182063.
O'Loughlin, J., Dugas, E., O'Loughlin, E., Karp, I. And Sylvestre, M. (2014). Incidence and
Determinants of Cigarette Smoking Initiation in Young Adults. Journal of Adolescent
Health, 54(1), pp.26-32.e4.
West, R. (2017). Tobacco smoking: Health impact, prevalence, correlates and interventions.
Psychology & Health, 32(8), pp.1018-1036.
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