Tobacco Usage Among Indigenous Population: Health Challenges And Collaborative Efforts Essay.

Smoking of tobacco leads to disease as well as disability together with harm in every organ of human body. More than 18 million of individuals throughout the world as per current estimation are leaving with health challenges caused due tobacco smoking (Horrill et al. 2018, p. 1223). Smoking has been widely regarded as one of the major health challenges contributing to cancer as well as hard disease and severe diabetic condition followed by chronic pulmonary challenges including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. According to the centres for disease control and prevention, tobacco smoking also induces the risk for eye challenges and problems related to immune system and risk of tuberculosis (Centers for disease control and prevention. 2022).

This report focuses on the health challenge of tobacco usage among indigenous population. Research studies reveal that, tobacco although is considered to be sacred in diverse indigenous cultures, recreational misuse of the commercial tobacco is harmful as well as highly addictive (Wylie and McConkey 2019, p. 41). The overall misuse of tobacco has been considered to be the leading preventable cause of premature day throughout the world specifically highlighting the increasing tobacco usage rates among indigenous population which are at least three times higher than the non-indigenous part.

The effects of the colonial procedure together with the marketing and promotion of tobacco entrenched the uses of commercial tobacco among the indigenous population in Australia as well as the population throughout the world. Research reports states that their lies direct evidence over smoking attributable mortality regarding the total population of Australia. The overall indigenous smoking epidemic includes unique features like protracted duration as well as high rate of prevalence among males as well as female.

Indigenous population throughout the world bears the disproportionate burden of the substance related mortality and morbidity while compared to the population that is non indigenous in nature. The uses and prevalence of tobacco among the indigenous population is double than the relevant non indigenous part with estimates about 59% in Canada and 53% in Australia, 45% in New Zealand and 44% in United States for the Alaskan natives (Centers for disease control and prevention. 2022). Addiction towards nicotine majorly begins during the earlier in the indigenous community where majority of the youth population are potentially inclined towards the tobacco smoking due to their sedentary lifestyle and added social context of the uses of tobacco. Respective of numerous reductions in the tobacco usage by the control programs in Australia, the gap among the uses of tobacco as well as the health challenges within the two community groups have remain to be consistent (Thurber et al. 2021, p. 950). According to the closing the gap policy, health morbidity and challenges caused by tobacco uses and smoking initiation by the indigenous population and the youth starts majorly from 13 years of age the doubles the rate while the age increases. Overall uses of tobacco are also inclusive of adopting rolling cigarettes and pipe tobacco as well as flavoured cigarettes that are reported to be majorly prevalent among the indigenous community people in comparison to the non-indigenous population in Australia.

Target Group

Majority of the contemporary death of the indigenous population is it above 45 years are caused by the use of tobacco according to majority of the research studies. In the last few years, the number of deaths has increased with the magnitude of smoking connected harm’s as well as urgent requirement for preventing smoking initiation and also to support indigenous smokers for quitting their misuse of tobacco.

The ceremonial and medicinal purpose of the use of tobacco by indigenous population predates the colonial impact of Europe. Tobacco is majorly offered and burned ceremonially for establishing directly with spiritual globe. The recreational usage of the commercial tobacco however on the other hand involves inhalation of smoke that have high content of toxic and nicotine addictive which are harmful (Gibberd et al. 2019, p. 10).

The normalization of the usage tobacco in the indigenous population at Australia have majorly resulted in disproportionate burden of severe health challenges like cardiovascular disease, prevalence of type 2 diabetes, blood pressure challenges, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, tuberculosis, obesity and arthritis. Furthermore, the uses of tobacco within the indigenous community people have also result in the widening gap of health status in Australia with subsequent impacts on societal interactions and community collaboration (Xu et al. 2019, p. 1668). Social influences resulting in the indigenous youth population to initiate the uses of tobacco include peer group pressure as well as observation on smoking in the adult at the indigenous community.

Access to healthcare is fundamental for each and every human being and is inclusive of the determinants of basic health status. Evidences highlighting the existing gap in mortality and health status as well as inequality among the aboriginal and non aboriginal population reveal that access towards healthcare is still a problemist situation for majority of the indigenous population and is a concerning ground respective of numerous policies and legislations being implemented in the nation (Australian Government. 2022). Discrimination in the access to healthcare tends to have a negative impact over the well-being and the health status. Experience is related to discrimination are henceforth consider to be the route cause for numerous health in equalities existing among the indigenous population in Australia. Regarding the prevalence of tobacco usage and the connected health disease like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, experience is of discrimination have been reported to be the common factor that discourages the indigenous population to avail any healthcare facility (Cormier et al. 2019, p. 75). Lack of access to proper healthcare resources followed by abusive treatment and stereotyping and absence of quality in care discourages the population from accessing proper care and maintaining their health.

The Government of Australia has taken numerous initiatives than programs to address the health challenges caused by the uses of tobacco smoking specifically for the indigenous population in the nation (Australian Government. 2022). The tackling indigenous smoking program by the government of Australia has been developed for improving the life expectancy among the indigenous people by the reduction of the commercial uses of tobacco. Numerous stakeholders like local organisations and non-governmental organisations in diverse states of the nation run activities that has been designed for reducing smoking rates like awareness program and campaigns and educational setting for indigenous population and the youth (Maddox et al. 2019, p. 580). Partnership and collaboration by the Australian government target the construction of programs in the controlling of regional tobacco and improvements for quicklime in the provision of accessible and culturally appropriate services to indigenous people. The collaboration also targets to promote activities supporting priority groups like pregnant women and children in the indigenous group at the remote areas. Tobacco smoking can be considered to be one of the most preventable causes of challenging health status and early death rate among the indigenous population and is hence fort responsible for 23% of the gap at the health burden (Glover et al. 2020).

Causes

The primary goal of the Governmental collaboration and initiative is to reduce the rate of smoking among the indigenous people and help the local organisation design as well as run activities focusing on awareness program and educational campaign for meeting the evidence-based goals that are effective and measurable (Colonna et al. 2020). Activities which are founded by a national and international organisation should target in the improvement of community involvement for reducing smoking which is one of the main causes of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Considering the surveillance over the race, pervasiveness in the health as well as nursing dis course can be considered as the believe that culture as well as rays are some of the characteristics which are the fundamental reason on why indigenous groups experience diverse help status and economic challenges (de León-Martínez et al. 2020, p. 134). The racialized ideology contributing to lack of access in proper Health care setting is one of the significant factors for the prevailing discourses as well as imbalances of power within the help care setting of Australia. Cultural safety draws over the post-colonial theoretical setting of negative experiences, disempowerment and barriers to healthcare access for the indigenous population that is still relevant in the current date.

References

Australian Government. 2022. Tackling Indigenous Smoking. [online] Available at: <https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/tackling-indigenous-smoking> [Accessed 27 April 2022].

Centers for disease control and prevention. 2022. Health Effects. [online] Available at: <https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/health_effects/index.htm#:~:text=Smoking%20causes%20cancer%2C%20heart%20disease,immune%20system%2C%20including%20rheumatoid%20arthritis.> [Accessed 27 April 2022].

Colonna, E., Maddox, R., Cohen, R., Marmor, A., Doery, K., Thurber, K., Thomas, D., Guthrie, J., Wells, S. and Lovett, R., 2020. Review of tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Cormier, M., Schwartzman, K., N'Diaye, D.S., Boone, C.E., Dos Santos, A.M., Gaspar, J., Cazabon, D., Ghiasi, M., Kahn, R., Uppal, A. and Morris, M., 2019. Proximate determinants of tuberculosis in Indigenous peoples worldwide: a systematic review. The Lancet Global Health, 7(1), pp.e68-e80.

de León-Martínez, L.D., Palacios-Ramírez, A., Rodriguez-Aguilar, M. and Flores-Ramírez, R., 2020. Critical review of social, environmental and health risk factors in the Mexican indigenous population and their capacity to respond to the COVID-19. Science of The Total Environment, 733, p.139357.

Gibberd, A.J., Simpson, J.M., Jones, J., Williams, R., Stanley, F. and Eades, S.J., 2019. A large proportion of poor birth outcomes among Aboriginal Western Australians are attributable to smoking, alcohol and substance misuse, and assault. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 19(1), pp.1-10.

Glover, M., Patwardhan, P. and Selket, K., 2020. Tobacco smoking in three “left behind” subgroups: indigenous, the rainbow community and people with mental health conditions. Drugs and Alcohol Today.

Horrill, T., McMillan, D.E., Schultz, A.S. and Thompson, G., 2018. Understanding access to healthcare among Indigenous peoples: a comparative analysis of biomedical and postcolonial perspectives. Nursing inquiry, 25(3), p.e12237.

Maddox, R., Waa, A., Lee, K., Henderson, P.N., Blais, G., Reading, J. and Lovett, R., 2019. Commercial tobacco and indigenous peoples: a stock take on Framework Convention on Tobacco Control progress. Tobacco Control, 28(5), pp.574-581.

Thurber, K.A., Banks, E., Joshy, G., Soga, K., Marmor, A., Benton, G., White, S.L., Eades, S., Maddox, R., Calma, T. and Lovett, R., 2021. Tobacco smoking and mortality among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in Australia. International journal of epidemiology, 50(3), pp.942-954.

Wylie, L. and McConkey, S., 2019. Insiders’ insight: Discrimination against Indigenous peoples through the eyes of health care professionals. Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, 6(1), pp.37-45.

Xu, D., Jenkins, A., Ryan, C., Keech, A., Brown, A., Boffa, J., O'Dea, K., Bursell, S.E., Brazionis, L. and CRE in Diabetic Retinopathy and the TEAMSnet Study Group, 2019. Health?related behaviours in a remote Indigenous population with Type 2 diabetes: a Central Australian primary care survey in the Telehealth Eye and Associated Medical Services Network [TEAMS net] project. Diabetic Medicine, 36(12), pp.1659-1670.