The Effects of Culture and Ethnicity on Tobacco Prevention and Cessation

The American Heart Association reports an even gloomier number, “Cigarette smoking is the most important preventable cause of premature death in the United States. It accounts for more than 440,000 of the more than 2.4 million annual deaths. Cigarette smokers have a higher risk of developing a number of chronic disorders. (AHA, 2005).

Tobacco smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and diseases in the United States of America. Close to 480,000 Americans lose their life each year due to illness caused by smoking cigarette. (Healthy People 2020, 2010).

middle (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12) students, CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzed data from the 2011-2014 National Youth Tobacco Surveys (NYTS). In 2014, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among middle (3.9%) and high (13.4%) school students. Between 2011 and 2014, statistically significant increases were observed among these students for current use of both e-cigarettes and hookahs (p<0.05), while decreases were observed for current use of more traditional products, such as cigarettes and cigars, resulting in no change in overall tobacco use. Consequently, 4.6 million middle and high school students continue to be exposed to harmful tobacco product constituents, including nicotine.” (Arrazola

Tobacco is the third caused death in the United States. Four hundred eighty thousand children have died from tobacco intake and over two million adults have this past year. When using any form of tobacco, you are not only risking your own life, but you are also risking others. Second hand smoke kills people too, it affects anyone, but mainly it affects infants and small children. Imagaine growing old with someone you love and finding out you have lung cancer. If you were to pass away, you would leave your loved ones behind and that is always devastating. Eventually ones tobacco intake increases or decreases, however eighty seven out of one hundred smokers said it increased over time.

The 2011-2012 California Student Tobacco Survey (CSTS) provides an opportunity to explore this relationship as this will be the first investigation into this relationship with this particular data set. The 2011-2012 CSTS is a large-scale in-school student survey that asks questions about smoking behaviors, SHS smoke exposure, attitudes about school and local smoking policies, and depressive symptoms.

The study written about in this article was from the University of Waterloo and Wake Forest School of Medicine in Canada. The data was collected from the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drugs Survey. The students that took the survey were all from the 7th-12th grade. Almost 10 percent of those students admitted to using e-cigarettes at least once. It was found that the students that have tried an e-cigarette are 2.16 times more likely to start smoking tobacco.

In 2014, 24.6% of high school students reported that they used some type of tobacco product in the past 30 days (‘National Youth Tobacco Survey’). There are several factors that influence youth to begin using tobacco. Although it is clear that peer pressure can initiate smoking, multiple studies find that tobacco marketing causes an increase in youth tobacco use.

The table that was chosen from Health United States, 2014 report, was on the following determinant of health: “Current cigarette smoking among adults age 18 and over, by sex (female), race and age; United States, selected years 1965-2013”; this table (below) was listed as table 52 on the report, found on page 182. Using the data from the selected table, a specific health problem that should be the focus of one research subject in public health is cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking is a specific health problem because the table, shows the trend of cigarette smoking (with some variation), on the decline for all categories for females (race and age) as years progress. The problem of cigarette smoking still needs to be addressed

Smoking is injurious to health and a preventable cause of premature death. In the U.S.; it is estimated that one in each five adults smoke currently and about 480,000 people die prematurely from diseases caused by smoking or secondhand smoke exposure. (CDC tobacco use). The economic burden of tobacco use is also significant. About $100 billion per year is spent in medical expenses and another $100 billion per year in lost productivity. There is no safe level of smoking

By coincidence, a study tracking more than 2,500 students at 10 Los Angeles schools who had never smoked tobacco, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, came to the opposite conclusion. It said ninth graders who had tried e-cigarettes were far more likely than other students to start smoking “combustible tobacco” (cigarettes, cigars, hookahs) within a year.

It is estimated that “one out of four high school seniors and one out of three young adults under age 26 are smokers”, which adds up to 42.1 million Americans who legally smoke (Smoking). This high amount does not include minors, or people who use tobacco products other than cigarettes and cigars. This number has decreased greatly since its peak in 1964, but the health effects are still prevalent today (Health). Lung cancer is one of the most infamous results of smoking, with 82.4% of all lung cancer cases attributing to smoking (Facts). “Of former smokers in the U.S., 1,154,000 have a cancer other than lung cancer from smoking” (Facts). This includes oral cancer, diagnosed especially among users of smokeless tobacco, usually associated with teeth loss and gum recession (Health). Other common illnesses that correlate with tobacco use include bronchitis, emphysema, and pneumonia, which cause 113,100 American deaths annually (Facts). The Secretary of Health and Human Services states “This year alone, nearly one-half million adults will still die prematurely because of smoking…and if we continue on our current trajectory, 5.6 million children alive today who are younger than 18 years of age will die prematurely” (Health). Imagine how many lives would be spared had the nation not succumbed to the addiction of

The evaluated sociodemographics were sex (male, female), race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic dark, Hispanic, and other), and age (9-14, 15-16, >/= 17y) (Persoskie, Donaldson, & King, 2016). The National Youth Tobacco Survey data was from the US middle and high school students who did pencil-and-paper, school-based, cross-sectional, and self-administered

Tobacco use by teens has been a problem in America for over 50 years, yet there are teens smoking today. At least 30 percent of adolescents use some form of tobacco. In fact, statistics reveal that the average age for first using tobacco is 13. Despite the incessant advertising and education on the dangers of tobacco use, teens still continue to smoke. So why to teens continue to smoke? Mainly because most of them do not know what long-term health issues it can cause.

An estimated 36.5 million or 15.1 % of adults aged 18 years old and older currently smoke cigarettes and more than 16,000,000 have smoking or live with diseases that are related to smoking. According to US department of health and human services, over the past five decades, there is a significant decline in cigarette smoking in the U.S. The progress has slowed in recent years and the prevalence of use of other tobacco products such as vapes, e-cigars and smokeless tobacco

The tobacco industry is important to the economy. In 1991, worldwide tobacco sales exceeded $59.8 billion and in 1992 the industry was rated as one of the top one hundred advertisers (Pechmann and Ratneshwar, 1994). However, there are high prices to pay - socially, economically, and personally - as a result of this industry. Annual mortality figures indicate that cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States. An estimated 390,000 people die each year of smoke related illnesses, which is greater than the combined mortality for cocaine, crack, AIDS, homicide, suicide, and alcohol abuse (Botvin, G., Baker, Botvin, E., Dusenbury, Cardwell, and Diaz, 1993).