Smoking Cessation: One of the Most Important

Smoking Cessation:

One of the most important aspects in enhancing the effectiveness of healthcare services is to promote the professional role of the nurse to provide health promotion and disease preventive care. This can be achieved through collaboration with other healthcare professionals and consumer groups in the community in redesigning healthcare that can assist in achievement of the goals of Healthy People 2020. An example of a focus area that could benefit from such initiatives is smoking cessation or tobacco use. Smoking cessation is an initiative that is geared towards lessening tobacco use, which in turn reduces its health effects and death related to its use and smoke exposure. Actually, smoking cessation is associated with decreased illness, disability, and tobacco- or smoke-related deaths.

The need for smoking cessation is brought by the significant increase in scientific knowledge about the health effects of tobacco use ("Tobacco Use," 2013). Since the first Surgeon General's report in 1964, increased use of tobacco is associated with various health effects such as cancer, lung and heart diseases, and stillbirth, premature birth, low birth weight and infant death. In addition to this, secondhand exposure to smoke can cause considerable health effects because there is no risk-free level for such exposure. According to scientific knowledge such exposure causes lung cancer and heart disease in adults and other health-related problems in infants and children. Some of these health related problems caused by smoke exposure in children include respiratory infections, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), ear infections, and severe asthma attacks. The other form of tobacco use that causes health related problems is smokeless tobacco, which may lead to serious oral health problems, loss of tooth, cancer of the gums and mouth, and periodontitis. The use of cigar also has significant health effects like cancer of the lung, larynx, esophagus, and mouth.

Therefore, lessening tobacco use through smoking cessation has significant benefits to the individual, family, community, and all age groups throughout the lifespan. Generally, smoking cessation will help lessen tobacco-related illness and deaths while lessening direct medical expenses and lost productivity. For an individual, smoking cessation helps in improving the health and quality of life throughout the lifespan, reduces risk of disease, and lessens premature death. For the family and community, the major benefits of smoking cessation are improvement of their health and well-being and decreasing direct medical costs and expenses.

The process encouraging reduced tobacco use through smoking cessation is an initiative that requires concerted efforts by various stakeholders in the healthcare system. According to the Healthy People 2020, these efforts should be geared towards three major objectives i.e. dealing with tobacco use prevalence, health system changes, and social and environmental changes ("Tobacco Use," 2013). An example of a health-related organization that focuses on smoking cessation is the American Heart Association.