Effective Health Promotion Against Tobacco Use

Abstract

The development of tobacco control policies and programs has been shaped by two concurrent forces. The first is the public health tradition of evidence-based decision making, which compels the abandonment of ineffective strategies and the continuous improvement of effective ones. The second is the tobacco industry tradition of resisting public health initiatives in order to maintain tobacco sales. This on-going battle has slowed progress in reducing death and disease from tobacco. Nonetheless, after five decades of research on, and evaluation of public health strategies, a consensus on a set of effective measures to curb the tobacco epidemic has emerged (Jha & Chaloupka, 1999). The lessons learnt in changing tobacco use behaviors have given impetus to the development of the science of health promotion. In the early stages health authorities relied on giving individuals “the facts,” but soon recognized that that this was not sufficient and that additional measures were needed. These included not only making health education more persuasive and motivating, but changing the environment so as to make “healthy choices, easy choices.” Creating environments that allow people to choose not to use tobacco means enacting tobacco control legislation to limit tobacco industry marketing strategies, to regulate tobacco product contents and emissions, to regularly increase price through taxes, and to protect people from exposure to tobacco smoke in public places. It also means that tobacco control laws be enforced and that smuggling is kept under control. Tobacco control seeks to change social norms and individual motivations related to tobacco use through media campaigns and other health education initiatives, easy access to cessation treatment, community involvement, and lobbying and advocacy. Governments also had to recognize their changed role from one of non-intervention in private lifestyle decisions to one of principled acceptance of their public health responsibilities.