Smoking or Creating Healing Environments

Smoking: Risk, Perception, and Policy

Author: Paul Slovic

" This important book reveals why the young start smoking and why, as adults, they regret having started. It is a great contribution to helping end a national epidemic."

-- CHERYL HEALTON, President/CEO, American Legacy Foundation

"This book is a must for everyone concerned about how to address the problem of tobacco use among young people. Virtually all new smokers are children. Many of them are in their early teens and one out of every three children who begin to smoke will die prematurely because of their use of tobacco. This book includes the most objective, thorough and authoritative research to date on the critical question about whether young people fully understand the consequences of their decision to smoke at the time they start and whether they are able to make rational decisions about this vitally important decision. It leaves the reader with no doubt about the value of efforts to better educate our young people and to empower them to resist the lure of tobacco marketing."

-- MATTHEW MYERS, President, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids

Do individuals really know and understand the risks entailed by their smoking decisions? The question is particularly important in the case of young persons, because most smokers start during childhood and adolescence. After years of intense publicity about the damages of smoking, it is generally believed that every teenager and adult in the U.S. knows that smoking is dangerous to health, thus decisions to smoke are informed choices. This book presents a counter-view, based on a survey of several thousand young personsand adults, probing attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions of risk associated with smoking. The authors agree that young smokers give little or no thought to health risks or the problems of addiction. The survey data contradicts the model of informed, rational choice and underscores the need for aggressive policies to counter tobacco firms' marketing and promotional efforts and to restrict youth access to tobacco.

Booknews

The basis for this study are two extensive telephone surveys (designed by Slovic and the other contributors to this volume) that were conducted between 1999- 2000, recording the responses of over 4000 people. The chapters consider the methodology of the surveys; risk perceptions of the participants, who are categorized according to age; the role of affective feelings in determining risk perceptions; the theoretical framework concerning the role of affect in determining judgment and decisions; the case of intuitive affect-based thinking; and legal and policy implications. Slovic, who teaches psychology at the U. of Oregon in Eugene, is a specialist in risk analysis. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Scholars in communication, medicine, law, education, economics, psychology, public policy, and human ecology attack the tobacco industry's claim that beginning smokers understand the risks. Twelve papers expose the ways cigarette ads trick young people by downplaying the dangers of tobacco use. Contributors discuss the risks of smoking, smokers' later regrets, the nature of addiction, the influence of advertising, and smokers' beliefs in their own immunity. Chapters focus on adolescents' and adults' perceptions of risk, media influence, addiction, and legal and policy matters. Appendixes feature surveys of youth perception of tobacco risk, and casual modeling methodology. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Interesting textbook: Fresh Lipstick or Mitchells Story

Creating Healing Environments

Author: Nancy C Molter

AACN Protocols for Practice: Creating Healing Environments discusses the benefits of creating a healing environment for critically ill patients and their families and how changes to a patient's environment can promote healing. Family needs, visitation, complementary therapies, and pain management are also covered. Each protocol directs clinicians in the appropriate selection of patients, use and application of management principles, initial and ongoing monitoring, discontinuation of therapies or interventions, and selected aspects of quality control.