HEALTH key question

Question 1

what is the health key question

Answer 1

Can we encourage the cessation of smoking?

Question 2

A01 points for paragraph 1

Answer 2

• being able to successfully encourage the cessation of smoking is an important issue for society due to the vast number of smokers who wish to stop smoking, and the financial costs to society including the strain put upon the NHS to deal with smoking-related illnesses.
• smoking is associated with premature death due to illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease; people who smoke have a 50% chance of dying prematurely (on average 10 years earlier.)
• statistics from ASH (2015) found that there are around 10 million smokers in the UK with around £87 million being spent each year on stopping smoking.

Question 3

A02 points for paragraph 1

Answer 3

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
- to try and address these financial costs and strains on the NHS, smokers may be encouraged to access support from campaigns such as Stoptober.
- this encourages the cessation of smoking by providing support with a community feel and using role models such as celebrities like Al Murray to convey the message to stop smoking.
- this is a achieved using a multi-media approach through an App, social media, TV adverts and 24-hour access to counselling.

Question 4

A03 positive point for paragraph 1

Answer 4

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE - Brown et al (2014)
reviewed the effectiveness of the Stoptober campaign and concluded that it clearly provided excellent value for money as a life-saving public health intervention. designing a national public health campaign using key psychological principles has a high impact on the cessation of smoking.

Question 5

A03 negative point for paragraph 1

Answer 5

NOT ACCESSIBLE AND EFFECTIVE
Public health England admitted that despite an increase in spending on the development of the 2017 campaign, their 30 second TV advert contained too much information and needed to be simplified so that the audience were clear about the key message in the advert. over a quarter of viewers stated that they ‘were not sure’ what this key message was suggesting it may not be accessible by everyone and does not effectively help the cessation of smoking.

Question 6

A01 points for paragraph 2

Answer 6

• it’s important for society to encourage the cessation of smoking to help employers to address the potential issues arising from their employees smoking in the workplace. some large companies have problems with increased absenteeism in their workforce resulting from smoking-related illnesses; furthermore, smokers typically have more breaks meaning they are less productive than non-smoking employees.
• smoking is the biggest cause of discarded litter in many cities and tobacco growing results in widespread environmental harm from deforestation.

Question 7

A02 points for paragraph 2

Answer 7

NRT
- employers have started to pay for Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for their staff and may encourage staff who smoke to use this.
- NRT can be bought over the counter or received as a prescription through a doctor.
- use of products such as nicotine patches or gum will help to control the withdrawal symptoms allowing the smoker to gradually decrease their nicotine intake and stop smoking completely

Question 8

A03 positive point for paragraph 2

Answer 8

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE - Zhang (2015)
used data from a longitudinal study of 3968 smokers in Ontario to show that NRT did help when stopping smoking but was only effective if used for 8-12 weeks as recommended. this supports the recommendations that NRT should be used for 8 - 12 weeks to have the maximum effect in encouraging the cessation of smoking

Question 9

A03 negative point for paragraph 2

Answer 9

COST VS BENEFIT
for some smokers the side effects associated with using NRT such as skin irritation from the patches and irritation of nose, throat or eyes from the sprays are undesirable. this may affect the compliance rate of employees who find that the costs of the treatment outweigh its benefits and do not encourage the cessation of smoking because they may stop using the products.

Question 10

A03 positive point for conclusion

Answer 10

ECLECTIC APPROACH
most effective way of encouraging the cessation of smoking is to use an eclectic approach which combines a physical treatment with a psychological treatment. NRT will address the physical cravings experienced by the smoker whilst counselling and support from Stoptober will address ant underlying reasons for smoking.

Question 11

A03 negative point for conclusion

Answer 11

NOT LONG TERM EFFECTIVE
measuring success of NRT and Stoptober often only reflect on the immediate effects. we are unable to make any final conclusions about whether such methods are effective in the long term, therefore questioning whether it is possible to encourage the cessation of smoking.