Health campaigns involves all efforts that are employed in order to maintain wellbeing or health as defined by the World Health organization. It notes that health encompasses the mental, physical as well as social well being and its not just mere absence of a disease. The efforts involved in health campaigns include health promotion and education activities which are conducted by the public health professionals. Therefore, health campaign is aimed at sensitizing people to be in charge of their own health through creation of awareness of adverse health effects that are caused by their behaviors and lifestyles. It is the duty of the state, non-governmental organization and locals authorities to provide health intervention measures to the community. This can be done through conduction of health campaigns against the identified risk factors predisposing the community to certain health problem. For instance smoking which is associated to diseases such as lung cancer, emphysema and heart diseases. In the market today, there are many brands of cigarettes but non is safe since they contain carcinogens, nicotine which is addictive among others. Smokers are at a high risk of suffering from the above named health conditions as opposed to non-smokers (Smoking Cessation Health Center, 2008, p.46). Increased number of youths indulges in smoking behavior out of curiosity and desires to experiment what they may have seen from media or other important people such as their parents. Peer pressure also compels youth to start smoking, most fear being left out or being considered primitive by their fellow peers. State governments have taken major steps intended to discourage the youth from adapting smoking like banning of tobacco growth. Non-governmental organisations have joined hands to ensure health campaigns are adequetly funded to cover as many learning institutions as possible in the US. Appropriate epidemiological tools are used to investigate public health issues by finding out the health indicators, risks factors and intervention measures. This is meant to help the affected individual such smokers to quit the behavior and also discourage non smokers from starting the smoking behavior.
Target population
A comprehensive health campaign intended for school going teenagers across schools in New York city for behavioral change towards smoking would involve use of a lot of resources both material and human. It is for this reason that an inter-sectoral collaboration would be required from the various stake holders involved in health promotion activities. This includes the public health departments, the non governmental organisations, the faith based organisations among others. According to 2009 estimates, the number of children nationally from zero to fourteen years was 20.2% of the population while those between 15 and 64 comprised 67.0% of the population. The number of school going teenagers is hence large nationally. The unemployment rate of teenagers was 15.5% nationally in 2007. New york city is the third most populous city with a population of over 8.4 million. Most of the people are urban dwellers with 92% of people living in uban centres. As compared with others it is more vibrant with a 24 hour economy and it has a rich cosmopolitan culture with blacks existing harmony with whites. There are many elementary and schools where the teenagers attend. According to Giovano (2002, p. 7330), the prevalence of smoking in the US among adults was 42.4% in 1965 but has dropped to 23.3% by 2000. This statistics do concur with the trends observed in New York City. This drop can be attributed to increased levels of health campaign interventions that have been initiated. The teenagers are the at risk group since they risk coping smoking behavior from adults or just by imitating their peers. The many entertainment spots in New York and much of the population occupying urban centres provides a good field where social behaviors are learnt, some of which are detrimental to health like smoking and drug abuse. Teenage is where most of adolescent tendencies are experienced and teenagers tend to be unruly and to be influenced by the happenings in their environment. Most of their part time is spent engaging in risky behaviors like going to clubs or even in engaging with such activities as smoking. It is for this reasons that health campaign should be conducted to enlighten the teenagers of the harmful health effects of smoking like lung cancer.
Epidemiological indicators
As noted by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control ( n.d, para.6-8) smoking and the associated health effects causes the deaths of more people than AIDS, car accidents, suicides, murders and illegal drugs put together. 22.8% adults in the US are active smokers bringing the total to 46.2 million adults. In 2007 the CDC placed the statistics as follows; male smokers were 22.3%, females were 17.4% while 19.8% were of African-American origin and 21.4% were whites. In this category, an approximation of about 80% commenced smoking when they were younger than 18 years. Among the adolescent smokers, 70% of them regreted the beginning of smoking habit. It was noted that, more than 5000 young people below 18 years of age experiment ther first puff and among this more than 2000 are addicted to smoking. Among the youth smokers who have the intention of quiting smoking, only 25% are successful leaving the rest still smoking. In the years between 2000 and 2002, there was a decline in the use of tobacco and its products from 35% to 28%. Nevertheless, use of tobbaco among students in middle schools around the US was constant at 13% (CDCC, n.d). As noted earlier, tobacco related deaths top the lists of death causatives with approximately one in five deaths being as a result of smoking. Annualy, more than 440,000 deaths are can be traced to smoking and which can be prevented.
Hendrick (2010, para 10-19) further notes that the prevalence of smoking tended to be affected by the level of education. The highest prevalence rate, 44%, was among smokers who had attained a general development diploma in comparison with those with college degrees who had a prevalence of 11.4% and the graduate degree holders had 6.2%. This trends education can be used as a factor to promote a non smoking culture in the US.
Community based response
The current statistics on smoking is worrying in our societies. We have been faced by disease burden of chronic diseases like cancer which can be prevented through observation of simple public health procedures. As a community we should establish a strategies intended to lower the number of smokers in our neighbourhood. The current trend of smoking among school going youths should be eliminated. The community should establish a working plan on how to reduce this alarming statistics. There should be collaboration from different stake holders including the community so as to build a sense of ownership. A team can be set up which evaluates our current status on teenage smoking by noting the epidemiological indicators. The team would then prioritise our needs as a society with the limited resources in our possession.The following objectives would be used as part of our strategy. The first would be to promote adult cessation of smoking through passing of health messages on dangers of smoking using media, posters and creating awareness in both their work settings or in health institutions. This would translate into the teenagers having good role models to emulate thus lowering the incidence and prevance rates of smoking in our community. The second objective would involve sensitizing the teenagers on the associated health conditions as a result of smoking to prevent them from starting to smoke. The final objective would involve members of the community being involved in health policy formulation like on issues of sale of tobacco and its products to minors. This forms the initial evaluation after which implementation is started to see to it that the objectives both long term and short term are attained.
Role of community and institutional leadership
For the success of the communities response to teenage smoking all players must perform their part (Giovano ,2002, p. 7330). The public health departments have the professional knowledge and skills of handling such matters as health promotion. On the first objective they should give technical guidance on quality of health messages and what they entails. Also this department is fit to conduct any teaching sessions intended for behavioral changes using the various theories of behavior change. Objective two involves the same while on the third they participate in policy formulation and thus would incorporate the ideas of the society during this process. The community leaders role in meeting this objectives would in sensitizing of community members on the dangers of smoking and also acting as counsellors to help those who are depressed. They also promote attendance to health sessions by reminding members of the society. Finally, they act as opinion leaders who are listened to and emulated by the youths. The non governmental agencies also would work hand in hand with the other members. They can source for funds to support this moves and see to it that there is success. Also, they are involved in health policy formulation that would play a part in objective number three.
Economic factors and funding intervention strategies
Smoking has many detrimental effects on economic facors of a country. As CDCP (n.d, para. 2) notes,the health care cost as a result of associated smoking is $75.5 billion and the losses in productivity as a result of smoking deaths is $81.9 billion. This huge amounts of money can be minimised through quitting of smoking for the smokers and not starting for the non smokers. The costs involved with logistics of a community based response are far beyond the reach of the community. Currently, we are recovering from the economic recession that greatly affected most of us as jobs were cut down and many sectors of the economy making losses. The organising should seek funding from various donrs like the non governmental organisations and also the government. For the initiative to have community ownership, members of the society donate whatever amounts at their disposal. By so doing it ensures the success of the health intervention and the objectives would thus be met.
Role of social marketing
Social marketing involves application of several techniques and concepts that are aimed at attaining certain behavioral goals mainly for social well being (Lefebvre &Flora, 1988, p.300). Social marketing can be used in health campaign to promote non smoking behavior in making goods that are harmful to health demeritted. A major campaign should be enhanced with anti smoking slogans that clearly displays the health effects of cigarette smoking. This helps sensitize the people about the dangers that resul when one engages in smoking. When this is done a good number of people develops an interest in the message and behavior change is noticed. This leads to a decline in the prevalence rate of smoking. As a result, the society does not experience secondary smoking and the large amounts of money spent on caring for patients with smoking related diseases is saved.
In conclusion, health campaigns involve all efforts that are employed in order to maintain wellbeing or health as defined by the World Health organization. It is aimed at sensitizing people to be in charge of their own health through creation of awareness of adverse health effects that are caused by their behaviors and lifestyles. For instance, smoking which is associated to diseases such as lung cancer, emphysema and heart diseases. High number of teenagers are indulging in smoking out of curiosity and desires to experiment what they may have seen from media or other important people such as their parents or due to peer pressure. New york city is the third populous state in the USA with almost 92% of its population living in urban settings. The prevalence of smoking in the US among adults has declined from 42.4% in 1965 to 23.3% by 2000. Smoking is influenced by the level of education with those with graduate degrees recording the lowest prevalence. Communities can establish interventions by collaborating with other stake holders in the health care sector. Each would have a role to play to see to it that the response is successful. The response should be funded by donors in the health sector, the government agencies and the society themselves. Finally, social marketing should be used to promote non smoking behavior which has many social benefits.
Reference List
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d). Toll of Tobacco in The United States. 2010. Web.
Giovino, G. A. (2002). Epidemiology of Tobacco Use in The United States. Web.
Hendrick, B. (2010). Smoking Rate is Declining in The USA. WebMD Health News. Web.
Lefebvre, R. C., & June, A. F. (1988). Social Marketing and Public Health Intervention. Health Education Quarterly 15 (3): 300-301. Web.
Smoking Cessation Health Center. (2008). Smoking Cessation. Web.