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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Julia Valderrama, MD, MPH, Dept of International Health, Boston University, 715 Albany Street, Talbot 4 West, Boston, MA 02118, 617-2626436, juliaval@hotmail.com, Jan C Brogger, MD, Dept. of Thoracic Medicine, Institute of Medicine, University of Bergen, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, N-5021, Norway, and Francisco G Soto Mas, MD, MPH, Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas, 3500 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth, TX 76107-2699.
Tobacco smoking will be responsible for more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis, traffic accidents, killings and suicides considered all together in the year 2025 (1). Most of these deaths will occur in developing countries (2). Public health professionals may influence policy. We have investigated the attitudes of future public health professionals to compare of the priority given to tobacco control between students from developed and developing countries. Methods: Cross-sectional e-mail survey among public health students enrolled at the Boston University School of Public Health. Results: A preliminary analysis (n=66) shows that most students thought tobacco control should be a priority, but with a trend (p=0.08) for developing countries' students giving less weight to this. When given a ranking of options (HIV/AIDS, maternal/child health care, tobacco control, water and sanitation and bio-terrorism) tobacco control was categorized on average as priority number 3 by developed countries' students and as low as priority number 4 by developing countries (p for the difference=0.03). The highest priority was given to bio-terrorism (31.1%) among students from developed countries, and maternal/child health care (44.4%) among students from developing countries.. Conclusions: Tobacco control is not seen as a high priority among future public health professionals from developing countries, in spite of the growing impact of the industry. We need to gain knowledge on attitudes towards tobacco control initiatives in developing countries to change the emphasis given to tobacco control and to facilitate the development of strategies to curtail the epidemic.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to
Keywords: Developing Countries, Tobacco Control
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.