Smoking in Young Adults: Health and Social Problem
Cigarette smoking is prevalent among youths. Many youths are continuously engaging themselves in tobacco abuse, despite the negative social and health effects. Many factors lead to smoking behavior among youths. Peer pressure is the major factor that leads to young adults becoming smokers. Once one becomes a smoker, they risk suffering from deadly diseases such as lung cancer. Smoking reduces the youth’s ability to concentrate in one place for a long time. At home, in class, or at the workplace, smokers have to keep sneaking and going out to smoke. In the United States, about 44 million youths are cigarette smokers; of whom 33 percent are likely to die of tobacco-related diseases. There is a lot of literature discussing the problem of cigarette smoking among young adults. This paper reviews some of the literature to show that smoking is a serious health and social problem among youths.
Tobacco smoking has become a serious social and health problem that requires the intervention of key agencies. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) explains that due to the negative effects of tobacco smoking among the population, nurses must adopt an appropriate health approach towards addressing cigarette smoking and the resultant health effects. The rates of cigarette smoking among youths are caused by many factors. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2008) posit that the modern modes of communication are responsible for the increased tobacco smoking. On the internet, print media, televisions, and films among other media, the youths are exposed to cigarette smoking. In the intervention towards curbing cigarette smoking, two initiatives are appropriate. First, the addicted youths should be assisted to quit smoking. The next initiative should ensure that addiction cases do not increase.
Most of the youths join cigarette smoking at the age of between 15 and 25 years. At this age, the youths are in college. When they join smoking at that age, they reduce the quality of their life, their education is negatively affected, and they expose themselves to health complications, which are likely to lead to their early deaths. Helping such youths quit smoking should therefore be a priority of the nursing profession. The advanced Practicing Nurses are in the frontline in developing interventions to aid cigarette smoking cessation and preventing an increase in cigarette smoking through youth education (National Institutes of Health, 2015).
Smoking cessation interventions are important as they reduce the risks of chronic diseases among the population (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008). A cigarette smoking cessation plan is a three-step process. It begins with the assessment stage, then the intervention stage, and lastly, the evaluation stage. In the assessment stage, the patients’ level of nicotine abuse is measured. The data collected in this stage is used to decide on the best intervention treatment for them. The intervention stage involves applying the selected treatment to the patient for a period. The treatment and the period of the treatment depend on the data collected in the assessment stage. The evaluation stage involves screening the smokers to assess the effectiveness of the measures applied.
In conclusion, cigarette smoking is a serious health problem that needs to be addressed by health practitioners. Nurses need to adopt initiatives that will ensure that the young adults, whose lives are fading away due to smoking, are helped to quit smoking and improve their lives.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2010). Healthy youth! Student health and academic achievement. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Web.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008). Smoking-attributable mortality, years of potential life lost, and productivity losses–United States, 2000-2004. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 57(45), 1226.
National Institutes of Health (2015). New Funding Opportunities from the Science of Behavior Change Program (2014). Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Common Fund Program Report. Web.