Oral

This session focuses on Public Health Nursing Leadership in Tobacco Control. Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of disease, disability and death in the United States and will kill an estimated 1 billion people in this century worldwide if the present trend continues. While a global tobacco control movement has been highly effective in some respects, many nurses in the US continue to view tobacco primarily as a problem of individual health behavior. This limited perspective means that many nurses remain unaware of the larger social justice and policy implications of the global tobacco control struggle, in which multinational tobacco companies are powerful actors. Proportional to their numbers, nurse remain underrepresented among tobacco control leaders. This session will highlight multiple ways in which nurses' contributions to policy, research, and advocacy could be encouraged and made most effective.

Session Objectives: 1. Identify three ways in which the tobacco industry seeks to undermine effective tobacco control efforts. 2. Discuss the contributions of a public health nursing team to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a tobacco-free campus policy. 3. Describe ways in which nursing research could contribute to tobacco control policy development

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)