Tackling Indigenous Smoking

Tackling Indigenous Smoking

Health promotion programs are designed to engage the community and individuals towards health behaviors that lead to reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases. According to the World Health Organization, health promotion program enables individuals to control their health. This essay aims to critically review and critically evaluate the effectiveness of a national supported health promotion plan and its impact on the health status of the targeted population. The health promotion plan selected for this essay is Tackling Indigenous Smoking. In this essay, the background of the health promotion program will be outlined. Then a critical review of the political environment and evaluation of the finding will be discussed.  In the end, a conclusion will be made.

Background Context

Smoking is one of the important preventable cause of chronic diseases in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia (Lovett et al., 2017). Tackling Indigenous Smoking (TIS) is a national health promotion program in Australia that aims to reduce the high prevalence of smoking among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through public health promotion activities (Australian Government Department of Health, 2020). 

The life expectancy of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is shorter as compared to the non-indigenous Australians. One of the important reasons for the early death and chronic diseases in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is tobacco smoking. Moreover, tobacco smoking is associated with many chronic health effects including cardiovascular diseases, lung diseases, and cancer (Chamberlain et al., 2017). Tobacco smoking during pregnancy is responsible for low weight birth, perinatal death, and preterm birth (Gibberd et al., 2019). According to the 2018-2019 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey 37% of Indigenous Australian aged 15 years and above reported daily tobacco smoking. Among daily smokers, 49% people were living in remote areas and 36% people in non-remote areas (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2019). Tobacco smoking is accountable for 23% of the gap in health burden among non-indigenous and indigenous Australians (Australian Government Department of Health, 2020). TIS aims to decrease the gap in the prevalence of smoking between non-indigenous and indigenous Australians by reductions in the uptake of smoking and increasing the rate of sustained smoking cessation. TIS is a multi-component program that works on a systemic approach to change the behavior of aboriginal Australians towards a healthy life. The main elements of the TIS program are the use of evidence-based tobacco control strategies at multiple levels, the use of public health and place-based approach, promoting best strategies to control tobacco smoking, establishing collaboration and partnerships to support innovations and behavior changes towards smoking (Tackling Indigenous Smoking, 2020). The good thing about this program is that it offers flexibility in delivering activities at regional and local levels and also its emphasis on targeting approaches for a particular group with a focus on the results to be achieved. Moreover, TIS also includes evaluation and effective monitoring of the activities to improve the planning and activities of the program to gain the desired outcomes (Upton & Thompson, 2019).