Executive Summary

Lung cancer is among the major causes of deaths in the world. While lung cancer can occur in the non-smokers, its prevalence among the smokers indicates the need for behavioral change. The previous strategies fail to achieve the intended results as the participants fail to commit to the entire program. The participants resume their unhealthy habits after an intervention strategy.

The factors that promote the use of tobacco range from peer-smoking to the perceived benefits of smoking. The young females fall victims to the perception that cigarette smoking contributes towards weight loss. Such perceptions increase the likelihood of becoming addicted to smoking. While the people of Hungary utilize different strategies for the need to reduce tobacco use, it is necessary to introduce incentives in the intervention programs.

The incentives attempt to encourage the participants to complete rehabilitation and achieve healthy living. The strategy seeks to reduce the occurrences of relapse through follow-up activities to monitor the patients’ lifestyles after the treatment. The intervention encourages the participation of the clients. While it focuses on a small population, it ensures that the registered participants realize positive outcomes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Background

The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that the leading causes of deaths globally include heart disease and stroke. Lung, trachea, and bronchus cancers caused 1.7 million deaths in 2015. In this sense, cancer is one of the leading causes of ill health and mortality in the world. The WHO indicates that the behavioral and dietary risks, which contribute to about a third of the deaths from cancer, include inadequate intake of vitamins, high body mass index, physical inactivity, use of tobacco, and excessive intake of alcohol. In particular, tobacco use is the most significant risk factor in the development and occurrence of cancer deaths all over the world. The identification of the risk factors for cancer provides insight on areas to target intervention strategies that intend to reduce the cancer burden in the world. As a matter of fact, some cancer-related deaths can be prevented through behavioral and dietary adjustments.

Need for Intervention

Although tobacco smoking is the greatest avoidable risk factor, the world populations continue to perish due to cancer-related illnesses arising from the exposure to the cigarette smoke. The tobacco smoke includes more than fifty chemicals that result in cancer among the active and passive smoking population (Ambrosone et al., 2008). The use of tobacco exposes an individual to such types of cancer as lung, esophagus, bladder, throat, kidney, mouth, larynx, and stomach (Samet, 2016). Worryingly, the use of tobacco among the youth is prevalent in the world. While the reasons for initiating the use of tobacco during the youthful years vary among countries, the behavior exposes all the young smokers to addiction as well as lung cancer. Pénzes, Czeglédi, Balázs, and Foley (2012), claim that the belief that cigarette smoking can control body weight contributes towards the smoking tendencies among the Hungarian youth. The scholars cite such factors as peer smoking, parental smoking, the socioeconomic status of the parents, and age. In their study, the scholars find that adolescent smoking increases with the concerns about weight among the girls. The perception that the slim body shape is the ideal definition of beauty motivates the adolescent girls to utilize the available resources to prevent overweight (Pénzes et al., 2012). Unfortunately, those who resort to smoking get exposed to addiction and the various forms of ill health associated with the tobacco smoke.

Factors Promoting Tobacco Use

As noted earlier, the initiation of cigarette smoking arises from a combination of factors among the Hungarian youth (Urbán, 2010). In this sense, dispelling the notion that smoking cigarettes control body weight is crucial in the Hungarian young population. The female population needs to understand the dangers of using tobacco in attempts to gain the “perfect body shape”. The prevention program should dispel the perceptions and promote the use of safe methods of maintaining healthy weight among the youth (Pénzes et al., 2012). Secondly, there is a need for the establishment of a nationally dedicated administration that facilitates awareness programs in the Hungarian population. While the public health workers have a role in educating the people on the dangers of the exposure to the tobacco smoke, interventions fail to realize the intended outcome as the programs receive inadequate funding. Foley and Balázs (2010) claim that many public health initiatives aiming at the reduction of the exposure to tobacco use in Hungary fail to attain the projected impact due to reduced funding. The researchers indicate that the public health personnel boasts the expertise to facilitate prevention initiatives at the community level. However, the lack of funding reduces the capacity of the public health workers to promote preventive and cessation counseling to the population (Foley & Balázs, 2010). In this sense, the goal is to reduce the use of tobacco through the implementation of a program that runs without the need for funding.

Elements of an Effective Program

Although the public health personnel has the expertise and opportunities to reduce the use of tobacco in Hungary, there is a need for effective collaboration between the population and the national government. The collaboration between various community-based interventions and the government promises to facilitate the education of the population against the consumption of tobacco (Tapp & Dulin, 2010). Additionally, the tobacco issue in the country cannot be solved through the implementation of one strategy. The situation requires a combination of such strategies as access to support programs, the initiation of tobacco bans, and the implementation of the current regulations that control the use of the substance. The combination of approaches promotes efficiency in controlling the issue in the country (WHO, 2007). Additionally, the strategy targets the reduction of the various motivating factors.

The Importance of the Needs Assessment Program

The Hungarian population has experienced awareness programs providing the relevant information on the dangers of smoking (WHO, 2013). Unfortunately, the programs fail to achieve the intended results due to the lack of commitment from the users. Although low commitment could be a consequence of inaccessibility to support services, the population could be ignorant of the benefits of adherence to treatment. It is necessary to conduct a needs assessment exercise in the population to determine the need for intervention (Soriano, 2012). The assessment provides information on the number of people struggling to regain their health after using tobacco. The determination of the need for intervention assists in the categorization of the population depending on health requirements. For instance, the non-smokers require protection from exposure to cigarette smoke. Traditionally, the passive smokers have less control over exposure to the harmful cigarette smoke. Therefore, the identification of the population at risk of exposure gives the government insight on the potential losses in the event of prolonged exposure. The assessment attempts to direct the attention of the government towards enforcement of the existing law. The smokers should smoke only in the smoking zones.

The Intervention Strategy

On the other hand, the addicted population requires different forms of intervention (Michie, Stralen, & West, 2011). In this sense, the introduction of commitment contracts would increase the effectiveness of the awareness programs, which seek to change the unhealthy behaviors in the population. However, the level of commitment varies among the users as some lose track of their progress and resume their usual unhealthy lifestyles. The use of commitment contracts seeks to increase commitment to the support services in the country. The intended intervention seeks to introduce financial incentives in the intervention program to increase adherence to treatment for those addicted to the use of tobacco. While the strategy targets those in the rehabilitation centers, it focuses on increasing adherence to treatment and practice of healthy lifestyles.

Further, the strategy requires the participants to register through deposit contracts that put their money at risk when one fails to achieve the intended outcome. The successful participants will receive their deposits after two months from the time the four-month program elapses to encourage healthy living after years of tobacco use. The two-month period after participation in the exercise provides enough time for follow-up assessment of the patient’s condition. Although the strategy targets those willing to regain their good health after a period of using tobacco, it attempts to ensure that the majority of the participants realize behavioral changes.

The participants will register to participate in a program that lasts four months to provide enough time for the determination of consistency. Since there is potential for relapse after the period, the participants who resume their usual smoking tendencies will lose the whole amount deposited at the beginning of the program. The strategy encourages the development of a competitive attitude through the recognition of positive behavior throughout the exercise. The health professionals should monitor and record the progress of the participants. The records provide the basis for evaluation of a person’s progress.

The program utilizes volunteers as the facilitators to reduce the financial burden of running an intervention program. The volunteers will be useful in the needs assessment exercise as well as in monitoring the progress of the patients. However, it requires the support of sponsors in the acquisition of appropriate equipment throughout the six-month period. Additionally, there is a need for government support in the utilization of the information gathered during the assessment exercise in the population. The government should use the information in directing resources to the institutions that rehabilitate the addicts. Additionally, there is a need for supporting the ongoing awareness programs to ensure that the Hungarians realize the benefits of tobacco-free environments.

In general, the primary challenge in the proposed intervention involves attracting volunteers to facilitate the program. The limitation of the strategy is that it focuses on those with the intention to change their behavior for better health outcomes. Additionally, the program relies on the willingness of the participants to risk their money in an attempt to gain the desirable outcome. Nonetheless, the limitations identify areas for future improvements and expansion of the program. The successful participants should encourage those struggling with addiction to the use of tobacco to seek assistance from the support services.

 

 

References

Ambrosone, C. B., Kropp, S., Yang, J., Yao, S., Shields, P. G., & Chang-Claude, J. (2008).          Cigarette smoking, N-acetyltransferase 2 genotypes, and breast cancer risk: pooled    analysis and meta-analysis. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Biomarkers, 17(1), 15-            26.

Foley, K. L., & Balázs, P. (2010). Social will for tobacco control among the Hungarian public       health workforce. Central European Journal of Public Health, 18(1), pp. 25-30.

Michie, S., van Stralen, M. M., & West, R. (2011). The behavior change wheel: A new method     for characterizing and designing behavior change interventions. Implementation Science,         6(1), p. 42.

Pénzes, M., Czeglédi, E., Balázs, P., & Foley, K. L. (2012). Factors associated with tobacco         smoking and the belief about weight control effect of smoking among Hungarian            adolescents. Central European Journal of Public Health, 20(1), pp. 11-17.

Samet, J. M. (2013). Tobacco smoking: The leading cause of preventable disease worldwide.        Thoracic Surgery Clinics, 23(2), pp. 103-112.

Samet, J. M. (2016). Smoking and cancer. In D.J. Kerr, D.G. Haller, C.J.H. van de Velde, & M.   Baumann (Eds.), Oxford textbook of oncology (3d ed.) (pp. 127-148). New York, NY:           Oxford University Press.

Soriano, F. I. (2012). Conducting needs assessments: A multidisciplinary approach (2nd ed.)           Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tapp, H., & Dulin, M. (2010). The science of primary health-care improvement: Potential and       use of community-based participatory research by practice-based research networks for    translation of research into practice. Experimental Biology and Medicine, 235(3), pp.     290-299.

Urbán, R. (2010). Smoking outcome expectancies mediate the association between sensation        seeking, peer smoking, and smoking among young adolescents. Nicotine & Tobacco        Research, 12(1), pp. 59-68.

World Health Organization. (2007). Cancer control: Knowledge into action. Retrieved from              http://www.who.int/cancer/modules/en/

World Health Organization. (2013). WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2013:    Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. Retrieved from              http://www.who.int/tobacco/global_report/2013/en/

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