Smoking is a killer. This is a strong message that should be clearly adhered to and used to drive people towards the prevention of diseases related to smoking as well as death. Smoking has had very numerous negative effects on the lives of people as it attributed to financial, social and health factors (Beales, 2000). Many research institutes have for long been on the lime light to articulate the effects of smoking but people just do not listen. The irony in cigarette smoking is that, the cigarette packet is usually indicated that cigarette smoking is harmful to people’s health but smokers often ignore the warning sign. Smoking is also very addictive as the nicotine contained in them gives people the urge to satisfy their desire (Bachman, 2012). Needless to say, smoking also brings a whole range of diseases that are harmful to both the smokers and the people around smokers. This paper will focus on bringing out the effects of smoking by bring out the diseases associated with smoking as well as the financial and social constraints associated with smoking. It will focus on various interviews conducted as well relevant information from other sources to describe the impacts of smoking.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has indicated that smoking has become the cause of many deaths that can be prevented. It also shows that smokers relatively die 13 to 14 hours before people who do not smoke. Their death is associated to disease such as cancer, heart and lung diseases as well as emphysema. These are just the health effects where the National Cancer Institute indicated that about 438,000 deaths occur due to cigarette smoking every year (Mak, 2012). Additionally, about 38,000 deaths are caused by secondhand smoke where non-smokers inhale the smoke produced by smokers. A research conducted by MedlinePlus indicated that smoking can cause harm to almost every part of the body and that if people in America would stop smoking approximately 87% of lung cancers would disappear (Emery, et al. 2012). According to the American Heart Association (AHA) smokers are exposed to about two to three times chances of dying from coronary heart diseases as compared to non-smokers. Smoking has also been attributed to the birth of infertile babies as well low birth weight, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) among other effects (Almushayt, 2013). The social effects include the harm on non-smokers that occurs when they are in the company of smokers especially in enclosed places. Research has shown that over 32 states in the United States and European countries have banned in public places or buildings (Emery, et al, 2012).
According to the research done on the association of smoking status with healthcare utilization, productivity loss and resulting costs that resulted from the population, the costs incurred by smokers in Europe are relatively higher or have high costs in terms of their related earnings, careers and health issued. It also portrayed that 30% of the population in Germany are smokers aged 18 and above (Emery, et al, 2012). The research shows that smoking leads to higher chances of medical service utilization as well as related work absenteeism issues that incur more costs. The data collected from the research indicated that smokers have a lower probability of being absent from work but if they were absent, the duration would be 44% higher than non-smokers (Mak, Ho and Day, 2012). They also have a tendency of ignoring physician treatment. Most showed lower probability of physician treatment but for those who indicated utilizing treatment, they had more number of treatments than non-smokers. Similarly, recent smokers had higher incurred more costs that former smoker who had a longer period. This was the same case for former smokers who quit due health conditions. They incurred more costs than former smokers who quit in order preventing future diseases (Almushayt, 2013).
The research conducted on smoking parents and best friend independent and combined effects on adolescent smoking and intention to initiate and quit smoking indicated that they have independent effects on adolescent smoking behaviors. It portrayed that prevalence in adult smokers in Hong Kong amounted to about 13.2% and 6.9 in adolescents as per 2008 (Emery, 2012). Girls were proven to be less likely smokers and occurred if only the mother of father were ever smokers. Parental and best friend smoking had combined effects on ever smoking in adolescents. There was however a strong association of current smoking that was found with maternal smoking than paternal smoking especially in France (Batscheider, et al, 2012). The intentions to initiate smoking in adolescents would be increased by the role modeling process if parents smoke regularly in front of their children at home. Peers influence does not much effects of the initiation of adolescents as compared to parental influence. The dose response related with the number of smoking parents and the intention to smoke may suggest that the number of smoking parents and their intention to smoke that the number of smoking parents is important to adolescents’ smoking habits (Wacker, 2013). The secondhand effects of smoking on the other hand include high cost of health treatment that is related even to the general public. The Center for Disease Treatment and Prevention indicated that the United States incurs costs of more than $193 billion in health care.
References
Bachmann, M. S.; Znoj, H.; Brodbeck, J. (2012). Smoking behaviour, former quit attempts and intention to quit in urban adolescents and young adults: A five-year longitudinal study.Public Health (Elsevier), 126(12), 1044-1050.
Batscheider, A; Zakrzewska, S; Heinrich, J; Teuner, C. M.; Menn, P; Bauer, C.P; Hoffmann, Ute; Koletzko, Sibylle; Lehmann, Irina; Herbarth, Olf; von Berg, Andrea; Berdel, Dietrich; Krämer, Ursula; Schaaf, Beate; Wichmann, H-Erich; Leidl, Reiner. (2012). Exposure to second-hand smoke and direct healthcare costs in children--results from two German birth cohorts, GINIplus and LISAplus. BMC Health Services Research, 12(1), 344-354.
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Emery, Sherry; Kim, Yoonsang; Choi, Young Ku; Szczypka, Glen; Wakefield, Melanie; Chaloupka, Frank J. (2012). The Effects of Smoking-Related Television Advertising on Smoking and Intentions to Quit Among Adults in the United States: 1999-2007. American Journal of Public Health, 102(4), 751-757.
Mak, K; Ho, S; and Day, J. R. (2012). Smoking of Parents and Best Friend—Independent and Combined Effects on Adolescent Smoking and Intention to Initiate and Quit Smoking. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 14(9), 1057-1064.
Negative Effects of Cigarette Smoke or Second-Hand Smoke | LIVESTRONG.COM. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/85218-negative-effects-cigarette-smoke-secondhand/
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Wacker, M; Holle, R; Heinrich, J; Ladwig, K; Peters, A; Leidl, R and Menn, P. (2012). The association of smoking status with healthcare utilisation, productivity loss and resulting costs: results from the population-based KORA F4 study. BMC Health Services Research, 13(1), 278-286.
Almushayt, N. (October 19, 2013). Personal communication.
