http://www.somosjovenes.cu/index/semana60/tabaquism.htm
Cuba strives to curb smoking
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Ciego de Ávila province, May 29.- Despite Cuba’s constant educational campaign to reduce the number of smokers, there’s still a prevalence of 32% among people above the age of 15.
Held in the provincial capital, the V National Anti-Smoking Conference announced the continuity of countrywide plans to design healthy lifestyles through multisectorial projects applicable to schools and communities alike.
Prevention work is especially aimed at teenagers –for they are most prone to undertake such a harmful habit– as well as at a more effective enforcement of the current legislation against smoking in public places or closed rooms shared by other people, as in a workplace.
Over a hundred experts on the subject who gathered at the national scientific meeting discussed a set of preliminary results of a study started in 1995 which shows smoking as Cuba’s first cause of death.
Due to be completed by 2020, this research makes it clear that smoking accelerates the appearance of peptic ulcers, emphysema, myocardial infarction and bronchial asthma, among other diseases.
As agreed by the delegates, the next conference will debate the experience gained in Ciego de Avila, one of the few Cuban provinces to register a reduction in the rate of smokers with a current 19,2 per every 100 inhabitants above 15. (AIN)
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http://www.somosjovenes.cu/index/semana18/tabaquism.htm
Cuban women smoke on a par with men
A study made in 1999 that covered around 80 countries placed Cuban women high on the list of smokers. Such prevalence has seen little or no change: research at municipal and national level has indicated that there’s hardly any difference between the number of women and men hooked by this harmful addiction.
Experts from the Epidemiological Division of the National Institute of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology assure that one of every four Cuban women is a smoker, a significant rate if we take into account not only tobacco’s damaging effects on health but also women’s role in setting an example within and acting as an agent of change for the family. This is a growing trend worldwide, mainly as a result of the increasing insertion of females into society and their consequent economic self-sufficiency.
Smoke if you will, but stay away from me
According to specialists, almost four of every 10 Cubans above 17 are smokers, which means there’s at least one in 80% of our households, not to mention passive smokers, either at home or any other enclosed space, for whom the risk is just as high. Nonsmokers, therefore, must defend their right to remain so, since –as one of the specialists said– “smoking is a free choice, but imposing it on someone else beside you is anything but”.
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National Smoking Prevention and Control Program
The problems posed by smoking are crucially important to the whole world, and especially to tobacco-producing countries like Cuba, where the habit is deeply entrenched in people’s customs and cultural values as a result.
Changing this behavior is therefore all the more difficult if we take into account that two premises are imperative: first, finding a solution to a global problem calls for a global strategy; second, society must be willing to undergo any change in the first place before anything can be done.
In order to solve the former, the WHO member countries, including Cuba, have become immersed in the organization of the First Intergovernmental Agreement, called “Framework to Combat Smoking”.
Background
In the 1970s, a decision was made to place a Warning notice in all packs of cigarettes and have health professionals and the media disseminate information about the hazards of smoking. To that effect, the Ministry of Public Health established a National Health Promotion Commission in charge of fulfilling the above mission.
Given the growing prevalence of smoking and high consumption rates, the Campaign to Discourage Smoking was launched in 1985.
The first permanent, nationwide program was implemented in 1988 and revised in 1995. By 2001 it had been assigned to the National Center for Health Promotion and Education and involved an important number of governmental and nongovernmental organizations and bodies.
For all practical purposes a National Commission was set up, composed of representatives from various health branches and fields who were assigned the following tasks, among others:
• Work in close coordination with the Ministry of Domestic Trade and its Sub-committee for Tobacco and Alcohol Consumption within the “Quality of Life” Health Commission (CSCV) created in 2000 after a resolution by the Council of Ministers.
• Increase and systematize both curricular and extracurricular anti-smoking subjects in our National Education System.
• Conduct a statistical survey on all Smoking Rehabilitation Centers across Cuba.
• Qualify as many health professionals as necessary to open a Rehabilitation Center before May 31, 2003 in every municipality where none was available and disseminate more information about them.
• Make nonsmokers
more aware of their health-related rights.
• The CSCV’s Sub-committee for Tobacco and
Alcohol Consumption will carry out the actions provided for in the
Program.
• Research will continue among various population groups, mainly with respect to Intervention and Participative Action.
• Systematize the dissemination by the mass media of smoking-prevention methods.
Multi-sectorial and Multi-disciplinary Strategy
• Educational actions aimed at children and teenagers.
• Educational actions and guidance aimed at high-risk groups.
• Maintain the ban on any direct or indirect advertising for tobacco products.
• Maintain the Warning notice on the packs of both domestic and exported cigarettes.
• Keep tobacco’s toxicity under control and gradually reduce it.
• Control the enforcement of the no-smoking laws for public and closed places, educational and healthcare centers and public transportation vehicles.
• Maintain the ban on the sale of tobacco products to minors, the sale of loose cigarettes and the use of automatic cigarette machines.
• Maintain a pricing policy consistent with the goals of smoking control and prevention.
• Increase the fight against smoking through health-focused actions at Primary Care level.
• Rate smoking as one major topic in the Programs and Action Plans designed by the “Municipalities for Health” Movement (Healthy Cities).
• Provide treatment to smokers willing to quit and rehabilitation services to former smokers through the National Healthcare System.
• Keep in place a system of epidemiological surveillance to assess the Program’s progress and impact.
• Research on and study ways to assess the Program’s effectiveness, efficiency, progress, sufficiency and suitability and improve its results.
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