Chandigarh, March 28, 2021 (Yes Punjab News)
In her inaugural address in a National Consultation on “Women and Tobacco – Issues, gaps and Challenges and Way Forward”, Preeti Sudan, Former Secretary Health, Govt. of India, known for her proactive role on public health issues, said that, the topic needs a focused, multi-sectoral, consultative, community level interventions apart from strict legislative provisions already in place.
Dr Mira Aghi, Behavioural Scientist and a Communication Expert of an international repute in her Keynote elaborated that, “In order for tobacco control to be effective with women, we have to have the commitment to study fully, why in the first place they take up the use of tobacco and continue its use and then to formulate policies of quitting the use of the weed in every form. The woman’s addiction is much more complex and requires a meticulous and compelling strategy to quit. “
Prof .Dr Sonu Goel, the Director, welcoming the special guests, experts and participants informed that the consultation was organized by E-Resource Centre for Tobacco Control (E-RCTC) under the Department of Community Medicine & School of Public Health, PGIMER Chandigarh, Strategic Institute of Public Health Education and Research (SIPHER) and Generation Saviour Association (GSA).
Dr Rakesh Gupta, President, Strategic Institute of Public Health Education and Research (SIPHER) and Ms Opinder Preet Kaur, Director, Programs, Generation Saviour Association (GSA) moderated the panel discussion and said that, the recommendations of the consultation will be sent to all the stakeholder Ministries of Govt. of India to be implemented in earnest.
As per the view of Dr Shalini Singh, Director, ICMR-NICPR & WHO FCTC Global Knowledge Hub on Smokeless Tobacco,” there is a need to integrate opportunistic tobacco screening and tobacco cessation counselling at all levels of the health care system including in Reproductive, maternal and adolescent health services. Robust data collection to understand usage trends, patterns and distribution including gender-segregated data leading to policy changes and better programme implementation”.
Elaborating on the issue, Dr Jagdish Kaur, Regional Advisor (TFI) WHO, said that” Women face different issues with tobacco. They need more easy access to cessation services need protection from second-hand smoke and economically viable livelihood options if involved in tobacco growing and tobacco products manufacturing”.
According to Prof. Monika Arora, Director of Health Promotion Division at Public health Foundation of India, “Applying a gender lens to all government programming is crucial to ensure women benefit from prevention and cessation tobacco control interventions. This can be attained by gender-segregated analysis of data and intervention utilization eg. quitline use by women vs. men. Industry differentially targets women to use tobacco and this should be countered through legal and human rights framework”.
The team of experts also included Ms Ashima Director of Sambandh Health Foundation; Dr Nidhi Senior Tech. Advisor, The Union and Dr Aastha Bagga, GSA.
Dr Rana J Singh, Deputy Regional Director, The Union, a Public Health expert and a Tobacco Control enthusiast of international expert led the finalization of recommendations and summarized it and elaborated that, Regardless of the comprehensive provisions under the COTPA, the tobacco industry is promoting its products targeting women specifically, so the national consultation was held to deliberate on the emerging issue of “Women and Tobacco”.
Mr Arun Verma, Director Operations and Finance, SIPHER and Dr Nidhi Jaswal from Dept. of Community Medicine, PGIMeR, Chandigarh hosted this important consultation.
