ASSESSMENT: PUBH5418 Tobacco Control in the 21st Century
There are four assessments for this course
1) Viewing and summarising recorded lectures (15%). There is a required template,
available on Canvas, for this assessment that you need to fill in.
2) Graded participation in four weeks of online discussion (10% each week, 40% total)
3) 100 item multiple choice online quiz, available online from (10%)
4) 1 x 2500 word maximum essay (35%)
4. Essay (35%)
Tobacco control invites many debates about ethical issues concerning governmental, corporate,
community and individual behavior.
For your assignment, consider the following scenarios and
the proponent and opponent positions, together with the recommended readings. Select one topic
and write 1 x 2500 word maximum essay DUE 11.59pm 03 November 2025 (35%)
Structure your essay in three distinct parts:
1. What ethical principles or issues are at stake in the scenario Summarise these clearly.
2. Select and then argue for either the proponent or opponent position, as stated in each
scenario.
3. Recognising that you would have to defend your position in public against those opposing it,
outline a strategic advocacy plan that you believe would be likely to maximise the likelihood of
your position being widely supported, particularly by decision-makers like politicians.
Essay tips
Use headers to organise your essay
Write in first person, avoid clichés and hyperbole
Answer ALL three parts of the question, each of the three part should be readily
identifiable
Reference well – use scholarly journals as well as online content
Proofread, proofread, proofread
You can structure your advocacy plan in a table format, some helpful resources for advocacy plans
include: https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/advocacy-tools
点击以访问 qt8hz1726x.pdf
https://www.phaiwa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019_Advocacy-in-Action-A-Toolkit-for- Public-Health-Professionals-1.pdf
Essay Topics
1. Smoking in apartment buildings
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Smoking in apartment blocks is a cause of conflict amongst residents. Nonsmokers complain
that smoke drifts into their unit when smokers smoke inside their own units or on their
balconies. A group of residents has gotten together and wants the building strata rules to be
changed to ban smoking not just in common areas, but within private units and on private
balconies too. Some residents have small children and worry about how the smoke drifting in to
their homes is impacting their health. Smokers feel this is highly objectionable given their units
are their private homes.
Proponent position: that all residents be banned from smoking inside their own units or on their
balconies.
Opponent position: that residents who smoke should be allowed to do so inside their units and
on their own balconies.
Suggested reading to start with: https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/cancer- prevention/smoking/smoke-free-environments/smoke-free-apartments/
2. Surgical waiting lists and smokers
A vascular surgeon in your department argues that smokers should go to the end of the waiting
list for coronary bypass surgery, allowing non-smokers to move up in the queue. He argues that
they have contributed to their own condition, make little effort to quit smoking, and have a poor
prognosis.
Proponent position: that smoking should be a relevant factor in decisions about priority in
surgical waiting lists.
Opponent position: that smoking should be irrelevant to decisions about places on waiting lists.
Suggested reading to start with:
Matthew J Peters, Lucy C Morgan and Laurence Gluch. Smoking cessation and elective surgery:
the cleanest cut . MJA 2004; 180 (7): 317-318 . Plus see responses here
See also a series of letters on the same subject here
This review is also useful:
Identifying and recruiting smokers for preoperative smoking cessation—a systematic review of
methods reported in published studies
https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-015-0152-x
3. Medical Research Funding by the tobacco industry
You are the head of a research-based department in a teaching hospital. Funding is scarce and
you are looking to have to lay off several staff through lack of funding. A member of your staff
wants to accept a lucrative grant from the tobacco industry’s Tobacco and Health Research
Foundation to study the delivery of carbon dioxide and various nitrosamines to smokers via a
new “tar free” cigarette thought likely to be a significant step in the direction of harm reduction.
The usual conditions of “hands off” scientific independence apply.
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Proponent position: that good research is good research, regardless of who funds it — including
the tobacco industry: the Department should apply for the money.
Opponent position: that medical researchers should not accept research funding under any
circumstance from the tobacco industry.
Suggested reading to start with:
https://www.science.org/content/article/big-tobacco-s-offer-1-billion-research-should- scientists-take-it
https://tobaccotactics.org/wiki/influencing-science-commissioning-research-and-reviews/
This book is also very useful:
Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco
smoke to global warming by Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik M. 2010, 1st U.S. ed.
4. Is tobacco tax regressive
The Federal Minister for Health seeks your advice on raising significantly the price of cigarettes.
Evidence suggests that through the population, there is an elasticity of demand for cigarettes of
-0.5 (i.e., for a 10% rise in price, a 5% fall in demand results) and that this elasticity is even
higher for low income groups. However, the Salvation Army and the St Vincent de Paul Society
have criticised the proposal, saying that there will be many low income families who will keep
on smoking regardless of the price rise and that many will reduce the amount and quality of
food and educational expenses they outlay for their children as a result.
Proponent position: that cigarettes should rise in real terms by 10% per year above the CPI.
Opponent position: that cigarette tax should never rise beyond CPI-linked increases.
Suggested reading to start with:
Chaloupka, Frank J., Ayda Yurekli, and Geoffrey T. Fong. “Tobacco taxes as a tobacco control
strategy.” Tobacco Control 21.2 (2012): 172-180.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/21/2/172.short
Remler, Dahlia K. “Poor smokers, poor quitters, and cigarette tax regressivity.” American Journal
of Public Health 94.2 (2004): 225-229.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.94.2.225
Martire, Kristy A., et al. “Cigarette tax and public health: what are the implications of financially
stressed smokers for the effects of price increases on smoking prevalence .” Addiction 106.3
(2011): 622-630.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.03174.x/full
Verguet S, Kearns PKA, Rees VW. Questioning the regressivity of tobacco taxes: a distributional
accounting impact model of increased tobacco taxation. Tobacco Control 2021;30:245-257.
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/30/3/245.abstract
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5. Should we “scare” people out of smoking
You work in a Health Department. Research shows that many tobacco awareness campaigns
bore people and are poorly recalled. The same research suggests that new and “arresting”
information is probably needed to make young people think about quitting or not starting to
smoke. As a result an advertisement has been made that shows a young man in an artificial limb
factory. He says to camera “some people think smoking makes them look glamourous and sexy.
But I don’t think there’s much that’s glamourous about having to wear an artificial leg, do you ”
The voice-over then explains that smoking can cause peripheral vascular disease, which can
cause gangrene and lead to amputation.
Parents of children with artificial limbs have been calling radio stations and complaining that the
ad is upsetting their children and should be taken off.
Proponent position: “Scare” campaigns should be used in tobacco control if they are shown to
be effective
Opponent position: It is unethical to use scare tactics in tobacco control.
Suggested reading to start with:
Gerjo Kok, Gjalt-Jorn Y. Peters, Loes T. E. Kessels, Gill A. ten Hoor & Robert A. C. Ruiter (2018)
Ignoring theory and misinterpreting evidence: the false belief in fear appeals, Health Psychology
Review, 12:2, 111-125 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17437199.2017.1415767
Ron Borland (2018) Misinterpreting theory and ignoring evidence: fear appeals can actually
work: a comment on Kok et al. (2018), Health Psychology Review, 12:2, 126-128,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17437199.2018.1445545
Sherry L. Emery, Glen Szczypka, Eulàlia P. Abril, Yoonsang Kim, Lisa Vera, Are You Scared Yet
Evaluating Fear Appeal Messages in Tweets About the Tips Campaign, Journal of
Communication, Volume 64, Issue 2, April 2014, Pages 278–295,
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12083
6. Vaping promotion
A newly elected government minister wants to “do something” radical about smoking and has
just got back from a trip to another country where the government there has not only legalized
vaping products, but also promotes their use for smoking cessation. The minister knows that
getting people to successfully quit smoking is key to reducing tobacco use and the associated
disease/mortality burden. The minster wants your opinion on what to do next.
Proponent position: that vaping products should be made legal and promoted by the
