Smoking a major public health problem.
I am thinking of many films where the actors & actresses are shown smoking in the content, mostly film videos with sound.
I am reminded of the Marlboro Man, a "cowboy" maverick hero character created by a large tobacco company to create positive associations with smoking their cigarettes.
Joe Camel was another tobacco industry mascot designed into colorful advertisements to peak the interest of children.
In 1994 a landmark case against big tobacco force an end to marketing tobacco to children, and thus these iconic characters were removed from the public landscape.
Cigarette style gum also removed from many convenience store shelves. I remember candy cigarettes in a package that looked like a genuine cigarette package. The candy was even shaped & made to look like an actual cigarette, but was in fact a hard sugary candy rod. Children would pretend to smoke these candies before eating them, thus training them in the art of the puff & how to hold em.
They even stopped selling peanuts at sporting events because people started having allergic reactions to peanuts treated with Roundup, which soaks into the soil where peanuts grow, yet the government never explains that the meteoric rise in peanut allergies directly statistically relates to the increasing use of glyphosate.
If used as directed, cigarettes are the only consumer product that will kill the consumer with preventable diseases & an early untimely death from cancer or heart disease for example.
Many other fun things like explosives once abundantly sold at Farm & Hardware stores in the early 20th century are no longer legal to sell to the general public because today people are arguable less mentally stabile than people in the past, evidenced by many mass shootings in public schools.
According to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD−10), tobacco smoking disorder is considered a mental and behavioral disease.
World Health Organization says there are about a billion smokers around the world and tobacco kills more than seven million of them per year with preventable disease & untimely death.
Tobacco control has been present in many countries for many years.
2003, the WHO adopted the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Despite their knowledge of the health risks linked to smoking, some physicians still chose to smoke, confusingly.
The Prevalence of smoking among physicians can be a public health issue both for themselves and for patients because they play a key role in combating tobacco use by informing patients about preventative health measures, stress management, health diet, and other lifestyle advice that most physicians do not have the time to discuss with their patients & indeed are often not compensated since preventative measures are not reimbursed by the health insurance industry, not in America or elsewhere where private health insurance the only practical option.
It has been demonstrated that physicians who smoke are less likely to promote quitting smoking to their patients.
Some medical specialties may be particularly at risk of smoking, due to higher workload, or stressful work conditions.
Acountry’s culture or wealth can influence the perception of smoking.
The perception of smoking has, historically, changed considerably, from a rewarding to a negative globally diffused understanding. See free information access online via search engines & sites like wikipedia.
Although there is a dense literature on the negative impacts of tobacco smoking on health, a systematic review and meta-analysis on smoking among physicians was available.
Perhaps you find it confusing that some doctors still smoke tobacco, when nearly everyone knows that smoking causes health problems. Looking into the prevalence of smoking among current physicians, I found this information somewhat shocking!
Of all people, physicians are the most educated about the toxic effects of smoking! So how can people who clearly understand all the negatives of smoking, still choose to smoke? Surely nicotine cannot be that addictive.
Smoking is a major public health problem widely proven by many scientific publications to be a source of lung cancer, asthma, COPD, heart disease, and kidney damage.
Tobacco or cigarette smoke contains thousands of substances, and illustrated clearly why the combustion of carbon fuels also so dirty & toxic that we had to resort to expensive catalytic converters with multiple O2 sensors into the ECU that also controls the fuel injection pulses & timing to clean up automobile exhaust of ICE or gasoline & diesel fueled vehicles, mostly newer model year cars & SUV's & trucks, or passenger vehicles.
Coal power emissions illustrated by combustion a dirty toxic air pollution problem erosive to public & environmental health. Acid rain & HC fumes & small particulate in particular are toxic to people & ecosystems.
Thus smoking tobacco or any other substance produces toxic compounds because air mostly 70% nitrogen & those nitrogen atoms react with oxygen at higher temperatures of combustion to form oxides of nitrogen or NOX which are poisonous or toxic.
While physicians play a crucial role in helping patients to stop smoking, some physicians are still smoking.
Via a systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of smoking among physicians, PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases were searched for the prevalence of smoking among physicians, and where possible, by specialties, continents, and periods of time. Subsequent meta-regressions performed regarding putative influencing factors.
Among 246 studies and 497,081 physicians, the smoking prevalence among physicians was 21% (95CI 20 to 23%).
Prevalence of smoking was 25% in medical students, 24% in family practitioners, 18% in surgical specialties, 17% in psychiatrists, 16% in medical specialties, 11% in anesthesiologists, 9% in radiologists, and 8% in pediatricians.
Physicians in Europe and Asia had a higher smoking prevalence than in Oceania. The smoking prevalence among physicians has decreased over time. Male physicians had a higher smoking prevalence.
Age did not influence smoking prevalence. Conclusion: Prevalence of smoking among physicians is high, around 21%. Family practitioners and medical students have the highest percentage of smokers. All physicians should benefit from targeted preventive strategies.
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