Background Information
Tobacco cessation has the potential to reduce risk factors and deaths associated with tobacco smoking, making the practice a fundamental health promotion program. According to reports by the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 8 million people die each year due to smoking-related complications. Tobacco cessation, which involves “an intention not to smoke any more cigarettes from a given point in time,” is considered an ideal way of preventing premature deaths caused by tobacco smoking (West, 2017, p. 1020). While tobacco is not a primary cause of death, its continuous use increases the risk of users contracting a variety of diseases, such as lung cancer and heart disease.
Objectives of the Program
The goals of the tobacco cessation program will be pillared against the concept of system thinking. As noted by scholars, systems thinking approaches involve the integration of interventions that affect multiple stakeholders, including practitioners, researchers, and policymakers (Sharma, Branscum & Atri, 2014). Hence, the tobacco cessation program will incorporate objectives that target different stakeholders, such as practitioners and tobacco users.
The program has primary objectives, which focus on the set goals. For instance, to reduce the rate of tobacco use among the adult population, increase awareness among people on the benefits of tobacco cessation, and foster further engagement of health practitioners in smoking cessation. Based on previous statistics, tobacco smoking is highest among adults between the ages of 25 and 64 (“Current Cigarette Smoking,” n.d). Therefore, among the objectives of the program is to reduce the rate of cigarette use and create awareness about the importance of cessation among adults. Besides, healthcare providers should offer services to patients suffering from tobacco-related illnesses. Hence, this program aims to enlighten care providers on the importance of promoting smoking cessation among their patients.
5 Steps of Program Planning in Creating a Community Health Intervention Program
Program planning is critical because it facilitates the successful attainment of the project’s goals and objectives. Thus, to create an effective tobacco cessation program, I will consider five steps of program planning; managing the planning process, conducting a situational assessment, identifying goals, outcome, and population of interest; identifying output, procedures, and specific strategies, and developing indicators (Bartfay & Bartfay, 2016). The first step will involve managing the planning process, whereby various resources, timelines, and stakeholders involved in the program will be determined and managed. In the first stage, I will develop a detailed plan of the target adult population, the time frame for the program, and other stakeholders who will be involved in the project.
The second step of program planning will involve conducting a situational assessment, which will facilitate an informed decision on the goals and outcome objectives required in the third stage. I will evaluate my population of interest (adult tobacco smokers) and patterns of smoking among the group. In addition, I will assess factors that may affect the successful implementation of the tobacco cessation program. For instance, some studies reveal that societal factors, such as the social traditions of smoking, can create a barrier to the successful implementation of smoking cessation interventions (Zou et al., 2019). Therefore, an assessment will be conducted to evaluate factors that may make tobacco smoking worse among adults, which will aid the development of the program’s goals and outcomes.
The fourth and fifth stages will involve the identification of strategies, outputs, and processes and the development of indicators. Notably, I will brainstorm some of the strategies that can reduce tobacco smoking among adults, including implementing over-the-counter nicotine products, such as nicotine gum and Polacrilex Lozenges. Besides, variables that track the effectiveness of the program will be established. For instance, the reduction of tobacco consumption will be used as a critical indicator of the success of the program. Thus, if followed appropriately, the five stages of program planning will facilitate the development of an effective tobacco cessation program.
Six Steps of Program Evaluation
In addition to planning, an evaluation will also be conducted in the course of the program’s life. Program evaluation is “a formalized ongoing and dynamic process to monitor, assess, and refine” a program design (Bartfay & Bartfay, 2016, p. 480). Hence, an assessment will be done to monitor the program’s progress and to realign it with the initial objectives.
Firstly, I will use the six steps of evaluation to collect data regarding the program. The baseline data before the implementation of the tobacco cessation program will be gathered. The second step, which includes program evaluation and writing objectives, will then be integrated to develop the process and outcome objectives. Process objectives will describe activities that will be incorporated into the plan, while outcome objectives will outline the expected results of the process; for instance, the reduction of tobacco use. The third step of evaluation will involve the determination of variables that will be measured and the intervals of measurement. Tobacco cessation will be measured after three to six months following the implementation of the program.
After implementation, I will use the six steps of evaluation to monitor the progress by tracking various variables such as the smoking rate. Data will then be collected and interpreted to determine whether the process objectives were conducted as planned and whether they generated the desired outcomes. Finally, findings and results from the tobacco cessation program will create a framework that can be used to determine activities that facilitate the reduction of cigarette smoking.
Performance Improvement Approaches that are Most Relevant to My Program
Several performance improvement (PI) approaches, including informational, behavioral, and social tactics, may be used in the tobacco cessation program. Informational PI can be incorporated into the program to facilitate the dissemination of reliable data to adult tobacco smokers. In addition, behavioral PI is a consistent approach to the tobacco cessation program. In particular, the PI may facilitate the effectiveness of the program by fostering behavioral modification among tobacco users to reduce the rate of tobacco consumption among adults. Furthermore, social tactics, such as developing support groups, are ideal PI approaches to the program. The identified informational, behavioral, and social PI approaches are relevant in establishing a holistic approach toward modifying and increasing the efficiency of the tobacco cessation program.
Conclusion
Tobacco use is associated with multiple deaths and illnesses; thus, the selected project focuses on a tobacco cessation program. The objective of the program is to reduce the rate of tobacco use among the adult population, increase awareness among people of the benefits of tobacco cessation, and foster further engagement of health practitioners in smoking cessation initiatives. The program will be created and evaluated based on the five steps of program planning and the six steps of program evaluation. Overall, informational, behavioral, and social performance improvement approaches will be incorporated into the program.
References
“Current cigarette smoking among adults in the United States” (N.d). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm
“Tobacco” (N.d). World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco
Bartfay, W., & Bartfay, E. (2016). Public health in Canada 2.0 (1st ed.). Westmark Drive, DB: Kendall Hunt Publishing.
Sharma, M., Branscum, P., & Atri, A. (2014). Introduction to community and public health (8th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
West, R. (2017). Tobacco smoking: Health impact, prevalence, correlates and interventions. Psychology & Health, 32(8), 1018-1036.
Zou, G., Wei, X., Deng, S., Yin, J., & Ling, L. (2019). Factors influencing the implementation of a pilot smoking cessation intervention among immigrant workers in Chinese factories: A qualitative study. BMC Public Health, 19(870), 1-8.