Smoking And Tobacco Addiction In The UK: A Public Health Concern

Prevalence of smoking in the UK

Smoking and tobacco addiction is one of the few among the most basic general restorative issues, particularly to developed nations such as the UK. It has been represented that among all risk segments smoking is the fourth driving purpose behind infections and other several ailments like asthma, breathing and problems in the lungs etc. The use of tobacco has been one of the most widespread one as compared to any other commodity of addictive nature. No wonder, smoking has also been cited as one of the leading but preventable cause of death and terminal illness among a large portion of the population in the UK.

To understand the widespread inconvenience and pressure that smoking causes in the socioeconomic and overall public health of the country, it is important to enunciate some of the statistical and quantitative data available in the public domain in this particular direction.

As per the statistical compendium report, about 1.8 million prescriptions and scripts have been dispensed all over the UK that intends to pharmacological help smokers quit. The efficacy of the prescriptions is not known accurately but based on other studies; it is rather common to see that about two thirds of any of samples of smokers from various sections of the population have cited that they were not able to quit using a single intervention. The effectiveness of the various remedies and interventions, which aim to make people give up the habit of smoking, comes under scrutiny every now and then (Jacobsen, 2016). As per an estimate the Net ingredient Cost of the items, whether pharmacological or otherwise, comes to be around an annual average of 48.8 million pounds (for the year 2014). Even though, the Net Ingredient cost for the previous years have been higher, but the question remains as for why to spend this significant portion of the public health fund in something which is easily preventable.

Several studies made in this particular domain of the various degree of prevalence among the various sections of any given population have served as the literature behind iterating the approach that was adopted in this case.

As per Murray, the addiction to smoking has been read about and analyzed. In his papers he has clearly mentioned the various factors that make smoking and the entire habit of it so addictive to the individuals. The one common thing that was observed during the course of reviewing the various literatures as well as during the course of the entire research was that the smokers often started smoking around their mid or late adolescent periods.

Economic cost of smoking in the UK

This particular observation has been seen commonly across the various literatures that have been pursued in depth. As per Park & Calamaro, whose paper dealt with the study of the prevalent smoking habits along with the attitudes and belief of the individuals who have been undergoing training in the health care profession, says that despite the high degree of awareness and knowledge about the ill effects of smoking among the health care professional, a small fraction was still there who had not considered giving up the habit. In the paper several suggestions have also been given that intend to bring a cessation of the smoking habit and includes practices such as group counseling, pharmacological assistance for heavy smokers and abstinence (Park & Calamaro, 2013).

In some of the literature that were referred to during the course of the research it was found that the health studies and other health care professional who were conscious of the bad impact that smoking has on their health had about 38.2 percent among them who were into smoking. This number was certainly a bit higher that what was observed in case of the general population.

Some factors that are stated as the reason behind this observation includes the fact that often, but not always, health care professionals and the students who have been undergoing the training to serve as health care professionals may face higher levels of stress as compared to students from other backgrounds.

As a matter of fact, it was also observed that the instances smoking among the health studies students and students from similar field as compared to strictly medical school students. This has led to several initiatives on the part of the health care and college authorities to pay attention to the control and prevention of tobacco smoking among the students.

It can be seen that the various studies that have been conducted so far in this particular domain concerns with a large cross section of individual. There is evidence which prove that the sectional difference between the individual groups that are a part of such cross sectional studies with regard to the smoking habits among the students in the healthcare stream.

Such difference can stem from a variety of reasons that are very different from one another. The study and research that has been undertaken with regard to finding out the exact factors that leads to a higher rate of smoking among the health studies and healthcare professionals as compared to strictly medical school goers, can explain and contribute to how the knowledge can be used to prevent and control tobacco control among the individuals (Simon et al., 2013).

Factors contributing to smoking among health studies students

The research question that was address in case of the given assessment included how the various external factors can influence the habit of smoking among those involved with health studies. As the section of the population that has been considered for this purpose is small and the subsequent data that was acquired was adequately comprehensible, the methodology of the research can definitely serve as a source for a study at a bigger and more focused scale.

Moreover as mentioned previously, the economic impact that smoking habit has on the overall health of the individual, society and the healthcare system is tremendous considering the fact that smoking is a very avoidable expense (Wilkerson et al., 2014).

The method that was adopted in this case involved the use of a questionnaire that was distributed among willing participants from different student groups who are undergoing training in the health studies department.

The question that were a part of the questionnaire included different details and were intended to deliver accurate data in relation to the various demographical and socioeconomic background of the student. The questions in the questionnaire were so formulated that the factors that have been responsible for contributing towards the increase in number of smokers are easily identified. 

The design of the questionnaire consisted of several sections that focused on the different sub sections that would be instrumental in answering the research questions.  Most of the questions had multiple choice format so that the user can select the options as applicable or mention in his/her own words the answer to any particular question (Taylor et al., 2014). The various sections that were a part of the questionnaire includes the demographic details, frequency and prevalence of smoking habits, occurrence of any preventive or measures for quitting from the habit of smoking.

The date that was collected as a part of the survey via questionnaire played a vital role in drawing the conclusions in this particular aspect of smoking among the individuals with a health study academic background.

The results suggest that about 45 percent of the sample of 11 students were smokers and 2 had been ex-smokers. 4 out of the 5 people in the group conveyed that they had tried to quit before by using intervention and counseling to quit smoking but have been unable to quit so far.

The influence that the smokers in the group seem to have drawn from is from the family member who smokes or by peer pressure (Vayena & Tasioulas, 2013). Even though each of them seem to be aware of the ill effect of smoking but in none of the cases pursuing health studies hasn’t made any huge difference to their perception, belief and attitude towards smoking. But 3 of the 5 smoker in the group cite that the rise in the price if cigarettes can be motivating enough for them to quit smoking.

The need for sensitization and awareness among health studies students

Conclusions and recommendations

Having considered all the factors that contributed to the menace of youth getting caught up with habit forming substance abuse such as smoking tobacco, it can be concluded that this study provides a greater insight into the habits of those who are presently getting trained in health studies and would be health professionals in future. It is suggested that the students in the health studies domain must be sensitized and made aware about not only the personal risks that they suffer from due to prolonged smoking but also the fact about how they serve as an example for the rest of the society when it comes to being a role model for their patients. Furthermore, if a comparison is to be made between this particular study, with regard to the health studies students with the other similar studies that have been made with the general population, the smokers in the former display a higher tendency to take up smoking before the age of 18 as compared to the latter.

Quitting smoke can be done by a variety of methods available these days that includes certain pharmacological intervention as well, especially if the individual has been a heavy smoker for a long time. What remains to be done is to qualify and quantify the accurate factors that have contributed to the build-up of the habit in the individual, and then tailoring a particular approach to make the intervention work. The individual-oriented approach would help the overall system to a huge extent as the results would be finely attuned to the elimination of the influences that lead to the habit in the first place.

References

Jacobsen, K.H., 2016. Introduction to health research methods. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Park, B.K. and Calamaro, C., 2013. A systematic review of social networking sites: Innovative platforms for health research targeting adolescents and young adults. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 45(3), pp.256-264.

Simon, J., Anand, P., Gray, A., Rugkåsa, J., Yeeles, K. and Burns, T., 2013. Operationalising the capability approach for outcome measurement in mental health research. Social Science & Medicine, 98, pp.187-196.

Sweetland, A.C., Oquendo, M.A., Carlson, C., Magidson, J.F. and Wainberg, M.L., 2016. Mental health research in the global era: Training the next generation. Academic Psychiatry, 40(4), pp.715-720.

Taylor, A.E., Davies, N.M., Ware, J.J., VanderWeele, T., Smith, G.D. and Munafò, M.R., 2014. Mendelian randomization in health research: using appropriate genetic variants and avoiding biased estimates. Economics & Human Biology, 13, pp.99-106.

Vayena, E. and Tasioulas, J., 2013. Adapting standards: ethical oversight of participant-led health research. PLoS Med, 10(3), p.e1001402.

Wilkerson, J.M., Iantaffi, A., Grey, J.A., Bockting, W.O. and Rosser, B.S., 2014. Recommendations for internet-based qualitative health research with hard-to-reach populations. Qualitative health research, 24(4), pp.561-574.