Introduction
Tobacco-prevention programs should mainly focus on school-age children and adolescents, as four out of five persons who use tobacco start using it even before they reach adulthood. It has been proved that school health programs effectively prevent tobacco use among youth. It has been estimated that yearly deaths due to smoking are more than 400,000 premature deaths. Tobacco-related deaths can be avoided by smoking cessation. The tobacco use prevention program can substantially contribute to the next generation. Tobacco use includes nicotine-containing products, including cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco. They also contain additional substances such as benzopyrene, vinyl chloride, and polonium 210. These substances can cause cancer in humans as well as in animals. Inhalation of tobacco smoke from the environment causes severe health problems. It increases the risk of lung cancer and other respiratory infections among non-smokers. In children of smokers, it inhibits the development of optimal lung function. Chewing tobacco and snuff are smokeless tobacco and are also harmful to health. Based on numerous studies, school-based education programs have proven to be effective as they focus on skill training approaches in reducing the onset of smoking.
What Is the Prevalence of Tobacco Smoking?
Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) in 2009 found that nearly one in ten students in India aged 13 to 15 years use some form of tobacco. It is estimated that over one billion people smoke tobacco. Among them, 12% are adolescent boys, and 7% are adolescent girls. According to the prevalence rate in adolescents, school-based prevention programs for tobacco use are essential.
What Are the Causes of Smoking?
Smoking causes chronic bronchitis, coronary heart disease, atherosclerotic peripheral vascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, lung and laryngeal cancer in men and women, oral cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and oesophageal cancer. Tobacco use among adolescents can lead to adverse health conditions such as a reduction in the rate of lung growth, reduced level of maximum lung function, and various respiratory illnesses that might be severe. Sometimes, it may also lead to the development of cardiovascular diseases.
What Is the Role of School Health Programs to Prevent Tobacco Use?
For children who have not been exposed to tobacco, school-based health programs should be able to encourage children and adolescents to continue to abstain from any use. Among children with regular use of tobacco, school health programs should help children to quit using tobacco. There should be additional assistance by the school programs to successfully quit tobacco use for children who are unable to stop tobacco. The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) conducts a biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to monitor specific tobacco-use behaviors that include any history of smoking prior, the age when a whole cigarette was smoked first, the number of cigarettes smoked during the last month, number of days cigarettes smokes previous month, for past six months ever taken the initiative to quit smoking, the habit of chewing tobacco or snuff during last month.
What Are the Recommendations for School Health Programs to Prevent Tobacco Use?
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It is essential to develop a school policy on tobacco use and enforce it. The policy should include an explanation to quit tobacco use as it may lead to death, disease, and disability, prohibitions against tobacco use by all students and staff members on school property, advertising in school buildings and functions regarding prohibitions against tobacco use, and provisions for enforcing the policy.
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Provide instructions regarding the consequences of tobacco use socially and short and long-term negative physiological and social influences on tobacco use. Programs should be beneficial to students to understand that tobacco use can result in stained teeth, foul odor from the mouth, and decreased stamina. It may also lead to exacerbation of asthma. Various educational techniques should be incorporated into programs to decrease the social acceptability of tobacco use.
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Tobacco use prevention education should be provided from kindergarten to high school. These instructions should be more intensive and reinforced in high school students. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recommended that tobacco use interventions be integral to comprehensive school health education.
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The teachers should be provided with program-specific training. The review of the program content and modeling of program activities by skilled trainers should be included in the training. The teachers should practice the implementation program activities.
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The school-based programs to prevent tobacco use should involve parents and families for support. They provide social and environmental support for nonsmoking.
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All students and staff who use tobacco should be supported for their cessation efforts.
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The tobacco use prevention program should be assessed at regular intervals.
What Are the Interventions Applied to Adolescent Students for Prevention of Tobacco?
In developing countries, the interventions applied to adolescents for tobacco prevention are the application of an anti-smoking curriculum, the development of behavioral change intervention, and peer education. The anti-smoking curriculum aims to minimize the intention and initiation to smoke, increase the awareness and knowledge of smoking among students, and understand the effects of cigarette smoke. The application of behavioral change intervention in schools to prevent smoking in adolescents is related to health promotion that includes healthy food and physical activity, such as sports in school. Peer education is teaching about the importance of health and values.
What Are the School-Based Programs in Rural Settings?
There is prevention or decrease in tobacco use due to several school-based programs in rural settings. Effective programs include LifeSkills training, a classroom-based drug prevention program, Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT), and the Midwestern Prevention Project (MPP).
Conclusion
Today’s children are future victims of tobacco use as they start smoking in adolescence and continue in adulthood. School-based programs have powerful approaches to preventing tobacco use. They have started to show positive outcomes in terms of reducing tobacco usage and improving knowledge and behavior towards tobacco use.
