Evaluating Culture From the Nursing Perspective
This week, we will examine a case study about smokers in Poland. As noted in the Center for Global Development and Jassem, Przewozniak, & Zatonski (2014), prior to 1989, Poland had the highest rate of smoking in the world, with three-fourths of all men aged 20–60 smoking every day at a rate of 3,500 cigarettes per person per year. It should be noted that 30% of all women smoked every day, as well. This behavior resulted in a life expectancy of about 60 years due to the highest rates of lung cancer in the world and all-time high levels of smoking-related cancers and cardiovascular and respiratory disease.
To prepare for this Assignment you will be required to read Case 14 by the Center for Global Development and complete readings in Stanhope and Lancaster, then respond to the following questions:
· What happened to change the culture of smoking in Poland?
· Understanding that we all have bias when discussing health issues and precipitating factors, what social and political factors allowed cigarette smoking to become a part of the Polish culture?
· Reflecting on your own practice, how do you overcome cultural bias?
· Do you find it more difficult to deal with some groups than others?
· How do people use the cultural information that they learn about others?
· Do you think this leads to stereotyping?
· Does cultural knowledge influence or change your practice and interaction with others?
Support your response with references from the professional nursing literature.
This should be a 5-paragraph (at least 550 words) response.
Be sure to use evidence from the readings and include in-text citations.
Utilize essay-level writing practice and skills, including the use of transitional material and organizational frames.
Avoid quotes; paraphrase to incorporate evidence into your own writing.
A reference list is required. Use the most current evidence (usually ≤ 5 years old).
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2016). Public health nursing: Population-centered health care in the community (9th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.
· Chapter 7, “Cultural Diversity in the Community” (pp. 139–166)
· Chapter 11, “Genomics in Public Health Nursing” (pp. 242–255)
· Chapter 16, “Changing Health Behavior Using Health Education with Individuals, Families, and Groups” (pp. 355–376)
· Chapter 17, “Building a Culture of Health through Community Health Promotion” (pp. 377–395)
https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/global-health
Curbing TobaCCo use in Poland �
O nly two major causes of death are growing worldwide: AIDS and tobacco. While the course of the AIDS epidemic is uncertain, one can be more sure that current smoking pat-
terns will kill about 1 billion people this century, 10 times more than the deaths from tobacco in the 20th century.1 Much of this burden will fall on poor countries and the poorest people living there. While smoking rates have fall- en in rich countries over the past two decades, smoking is on the rise in developing countries.2 Currently, more than three quarters of the world’s 1.2 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries, and smoking-related deaths are estimated to double in number by 2030.
As Poland’s story shows, there is reason to hope that concerted efforts to tackle the growing smoking prob- lem in low- and middle-income countries can succeed. In many instances, this will likely take a very high level of political commitment—enough to counter the sig- nificant economic influence of the tobacco industry—as well as state-of-the-art communication strategies to induce major shifts in attitudes toward smoking.
Lighting Up: Dangers of Tobacco
Smoking causes an astonishingly long list of diseases, leading to premature death in half of all smokers. To- bacco is implicated in numerous cancers including blad- der, kidney, larynx, mouth, pancreas, and stomach. Lung
Case 14
Curbing Tobacco Use in Poland
Geographic area: Poland
Health condition: in the �980s, Poland had the highest rate of smoking in the world. nearly three quarters of Polish men aged 20 to 60 smoked every day. in �990, the probability that a �5-year-old boy born in Po- land would reach his 60th birthday was lower than in most countries, and middle-aged Polish men had one of the highest rates of lung cancer in the world.
Global importance of the health condition today: Tobacco is the second deadliest threat to adult health in the world and causes � in every �0 adult deaths. it is estimated that 500 million people alive today will die prematurely because of tobacco consumption. More than three quarters of the world’s �.2 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries, where smoking is on the rise. by 2030, it is estimated that smoking-related deaths will have doubled, accounting for the deaths of 6 in �0 people.
Intervention or program: in �995, the Polish parliament passed groundbreaking tobacco-control legisla- tion, which included the requirement of the largest health warnings on cigarette packs in the world, a ban on smoking in health centers and enclosed workspaces, a ban on electronic media advertising, and a ban on tobacco sales to minors. Health education campaigns and the “great Polish smoke-out” have also raised awareness about the dangers of smoking and have encouraged Poles to quit.
Impact: Cigarette consumption dropped �0 percent between �990 and �998, and the number of smokers declined from �4 million in the �980s to under �0 million at the end of the �990s. The reduction in smok- ing led to �0,000 fewer deaths each year, a 30 percent decline in lung cancer among men aged 20 to 44, a nearly 7 percent decline in cardiovascular disease, and a reduction in low birth weight.
Case drafted by Molly Kinder.
2 Curbing TobaCCo use in Poland
cancer is the most common disease caused by smoking, and overall, smoking is responsible for about one half of all cancer deaths.3 Smoking is also a major cause of car- diovascular diseases, including strokes and heart attacks, and of respiratory diseases such as emphysema. Addi- tional health threats are emerging as research advances. A recent study in India found that smoking accounts for about half of the country’s tuberculosis deaths and may well be increasing the spread of infectious tuberculosis.4
Cigarette smoking takes a heavy toll not only on smok- ers but also on those around them, particularly young children. Passive smoking (inhaling smoke in the sur- rounding air) contributes to respiratory illnesses among children including ear infections, asthma attacks, sinus infections, and throat inflammations. Tobacco use in and around pregnant women can contribute to sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, and intrauter- ine growth retardation.5
Smoking places an economic burden on individuals, families, and societies chiefly because of its massive death and disability toll and also because of the high cost of treatment, the value of lost wages, and the diver- sion of income from other basic needs such as children’s food.6 Because the poor are more likely to smoke than their rich neighbors, the economic and health impact of smoking disproportionately burdens the poor. In Poland, most of the gap in risk of dying early between uneducated and educated men is due to smoking.7 Furthermore, because cigarettes claim the lives of half of their users, often during their prime years, smoking robs countries of valuable labor and strains health systems.
Curbing Tobacco Use
Compared with controlling other health scourges, stopping the deadly effects of smoking requires chang- ing personal behavior rather than undergoing complex medical procedures. Preventing smoking-related cancer and respiratory disease simply requires that smokers quit smoking and that fewer people light up their first cigarette. Because most tobacco deaths over the next few decades will occur among today’s smokers, getting adults to quit is a special priority.2,8
However, despite the clear health and economic benefits, quitting is extremely difficult. In addition to having to
combat the addictive nature of nicotine, those seeking to reduce cigarette consumption are stymied by the fact that smoking is an ingrained social norm whose popu- larity is sustained through billions of dollars worth of cigarette advertising (which in the United States alone totaled over $11 billion in 2001).9 Moreover, many smokers in developing countries are unaware of the link between smoking and health—just as was the case in the United States and other industrialized countries before the mid-1960s. In China, for example, a survey discov- ered that more than half of Chinese smokers and non- smokers thought that smoking did “little or no harm.”10
Although changing the behavior of smokers is daunt- ing, it can be done—and it has been done. Governments and civil society can implement proven and highly cost-effective interventions to control tobacco use. Governments have at their disposal a range of legislative measures that can limit the supply of cigarettes and pro- mote nonsmoking behavior, including increasing taxes on tobacco products; limiting tobacco advertising and promotion; limiting the harmful ingredients in tobacco products; requiring health warnings on products and advertisements; and establishing “nonsmoking” ar- eas.2,8,10 Both the government and civil society can work to educate the public about the negative health effects of smoking.
Implementation of such interventions requires high lev- els of political commitment, as well as the determination and energy of civil society and antitobacco advocates to counter commercial interests. Tobacco companies are well financed and have played a key role in thwarting progress in tobacco control internationally.11
Poland: Highest Cigarette Consumption in the World
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Poland had the highest cigarette consumption in the…
