Last January, the global tobacco conglomerate Altria saw its stock on the New York Stock Exchange drop significantly, dropping nearly 40% from its record highs in 2017. What caused this sudden decline in one of the most recovering industries in the 21st century? It would be fair to say that the COVID-19 pandemic caused some major complications for both traditional and US-based electronic cigarette companies.
As an airway-borne infectious disease, COVID-19 poses an unprecedented threat to the health and safety of individuals across the age spectrum who have a significant history of steaming or smoking. In fact, a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Chinese patients with a history of smoking were twice as likely to have severe infections related to diseases like COVID-19 as those without a smoking history.
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Community counselors and attorneys across the country are currently working to answer an important question: What measures can we take to protect our communities from the combined threat of COVID-19 and the recent fumes? Trends?
The truth is, now is the best time to consider how we can influence our communities to create better post-quarantine schools for our students.
The loss and revival of the smoking industry
Five years ago, health specialists in the anti-smoking campaign of the Truth Initiative speculated that the tobacco industry and most of the country's smoking dependencies would end with the demographic generation Z. Vaping, inhaling pre-packaged aerosols (also known as steam), however, has led to the resurgence of nicotine products in school systems.
Through a combination of peer pressure and social media campaigns, students of all backgrounds were influenced by Altria's newest partner, Juul Labs, manufacturer of the electronic cigarette Juul. Mainly as a result of the spread of this flavored electronic smoking device, the number of students using nicotine products has increased from 3.6 million to 5.4 million in just one year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
How important it would be to know that schools were free from the harmful effects of smoking in adolescents and that school counselors and clinicians were available to address the important mental health developments that are currently in our school systems are so important. Instead, we're dealing with another really worrying issue: According to the Truth Initiative, one in four students is now using e-cigarettes.
These statistics represent a call to preventive measures in middle schools across the country. A number of schools and organizations have taken such countermeasures against vaping trends by taking measures such as seizure, disciplinary measures, and even educational programs. But the culture of steaming remains an important concern for parents and educators.
The worst thing about the Juul product is that it seems harmless to many people. Most students and parents recognize it as the small USB-shaped device that produces fruit-flavored smoke. Very few seem to understand the long-term consequences of steaming habits. That being said, these consequences could already be here.
Those at risk
Based on data collected by the CDC in early March, evidence suggests that COVID-19 poses a serious threat to anyone aged 65 and over. Fortunately for students under the age of 18, the percentage of infected and injured was relatively low in comparison.
While most parents find some consolation in hearing that student demography is least affected by the pandemic, statistics can change drastically when students are part of the steam culture that is widespread among young people. In contrast, according to the CDC for China's mainland population that is facing COVID-19, people with respiratory problems that have been mainly associated with a low history of smoking or steaming have a mortality rate of 6.3%, in contrast to a total of 2.3%. Imagine how exposure to vapors increases a person's health concerns and the increased risks our students might be exposed to as their developing bodies come into contact with nicotine products and a respiratory infection.
“They say that about 80% of people have flu, but they will be fine. We are in trouble because it can lead to severe lung disease, ”says Anna Song, associate professor of health psychology and director of the Health Behaviors Research Lab at the University of California Merced. "Smoking is a risk factor for the progression of this disease, is incredibly serious, and leads to mortality."
As we know, COVID-19 posed major challenges to the health and lifestyle of the world's population. Social and educational norms have started to deteriorate, and everyday tasks and responsibilities are now associated with unprecedented health risks for individuals and their families. We are very concerned that the unsupervised trends and cultures of our school systems could currently have a negative impact on our students. In order for these trends to continue beyond this pandemic, our students must continue to be endangered unnecessarily.
A unique opportunity to change
What is now an ideal time to invest in eliminating the harmful vape cultures that continue to linger in our school systems? During this time, most of the students have to do distance learning, and this can remain the case for many students at the beginning of a new school year. The changes and circumstances associated with student distance learning actually promote our greatest opportunity for developing an anti-smoking culture.
Society recognizes that our plans, policies, and preparations are not enough to succeed in the face of an unexpected global pandemic. So things are starting to change. Legislation is evolving to take preventive measures against practices that medical professionals consider to be unhealthy, and educational policy is constantly being reformed to address the needs and problems of our spontaneous teaching conditions. If there ever was a time to acknowledge the statistics that indicate the harm nicotine products pose to our teenagers and to help protect our children's safety, it is now
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Large systemic changes are challenging and often not in our hands, but educators and parents are currently able to make a noticeable difference in the students' environment. During this period of partial quarantine, most families are now all in one place – home. Our students are currently in an environment where they are under the watchful eye of their families and where buying and practicing smoking is essentially impossible.
In addition, they are in a potential learning atmosphere. Through the joint efforts of educators and parents, our youth can be exposed to real educational and intimate conversations about the dangerous practices of smoking. These conversations can mean the world to students who currently feel that their future and health could be determined by vaping culture.
COVID-19 has had a hard and unpredictable impact on our way of life, but it also gives us the rare opportunity to support our students with one of the greatest health problems of their generation. When we use the present, it is time for us as a supportive advisory community to think about what we should do to facilitate and emphasize this growth process for the mental and physical health of the students.
Our responsibility to intervene
Since early April, individuals at Rowan University's Department of Psychology have been researching the vaping culture that continues to prevail during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her research takes an interesting approach to behavioral analysis among younger age groups, including developing interesting activities such as mobile device and video game-based interventions that promote smoking cessation.
Fortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the university's common effort to combat vaping trends among the student population. Even educational institutions outside of higher education recognize the statistical risk that vaping is putting our students in the face of the current health pandemic. As a community, it is our shared responsibility to provide education and take the necessary precautions to protect the health of our students. We are just beginning to understand the right steps when we work remotely.
Educating the community: Knowing the increased risks and dangers of smoking behavior is the first step in reducing nicotine consumption in our school systems. Given the myriad of resources available on the aftermath of vaping from the CDC, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and even university websites like Johns Hopkins Medicine, it is the duty of school counselors and other school staff to adequately share this information with our local communities. It is important to remember that this information must be made available not only to the students we support, but also to our educational partners and families, who are currently our immediate home support systems.
Encouraging Real Conversations: Given the knowledge and statistics that are made available to our students at home, it is more important than ever that school systems encourage real conversations with students about current vaping cultures . Regardless of whether it is conversations between school counselors and students or between parents and students, we need to understand students' perspectives when they see products like Juul in the media, and at the same time see frightening statistics about the spread of a global virus.
For those who smoke, it is important that we understand their concerns and interests so that we can provide them with the appropriate support they need. These conversations are the ideal opportunity to instill resilience, empathy and community support in our students. And for those who have never touched a steamer, submitting this information and the associated risks is currently the best possible preventive measure.
Stand up for politics: To repeat it again, now is a turbulent time in which managers think about educational preparation and policies and how they could be used for future incidents. In addition to redesigning our school's distance learning policies, we need to work together as a professional community to advocate anti-vaping policies in our schools. It is important that school advisors think about school policies related to smoking tolerance and preventive measures so that they can create real opportunities to support student health.
Fortunately, states and health care institutions gather to develop a range of anti-vaping models that school advisors can implement or reference to improve their schools. One such model is the Make Smoking History campaign, which is run by the Massachusetts Department of Health to reduce the percentage of disciplinary measures in middle school. This is the time to ask and support the voices of the education community to find out what should be done to develop our education systems – not only from school to school, but also from a legislative perspective.
Formation of self-help groups: Given that this is a difficult time for people who are dependent on smoking tools, to whom they no longer have easy access, we need to prepare and set up remote advice groups with support from potential Problems like withdrawal or rehabilitation. A number of counselors may be struggling with the concept of long-distance counseling, but these students still need emotional and psychological support to cope with their new distance from vaping. Counselors should use the medical resources and staff in their school districts to help students transition to a healthier life. Ultimately, it is groups like these that we should implement more often when we return to school later.
The truth is that in the midst of a global health crisis, most people see the problem of steaming in school systems as relatively minor. However, the fact is that vaping is a real health problem for our youth and, combined with the COVID-19 threat, exposes our latest generation of students to an exceptional risk of loss. Imagine, at a moment in history when many counselors are at home wondering what to do to support their students, what significant changes could happen if we all focused our efforts on them to recognize the current steam culture and to counteract it.
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Related reading from the Counseling Today archive: "Pushing through the vape cloud"
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Zachary Short is a master consultant in educational institutions at Rowan University. He is currently working as a clinical research intern at a high school where his research on student behavioral outcomes is supported by the Mental Health Grant Demonstration Program. Contact him via LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shortzachary/.
Nicole Baliszewski is a master consultant for educational institutions at Rowan University. She is currently working as a clinical intern at a middle school where she tries to assist the special needs population with trauma and mental health. Contact them via LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nbaliszewski/.
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