Introduction/Background
The current research paper focuses on the connection between smoking and assessing the negative impact of this activity on health. Smoking is a significant behavior that contributes to harmful outcomes. In the United States, over 480,000 people die because of smoking annually (New York Department of Health, 2022). In New York City, more than 614,000 individuals are considered current cigarette smokers, which equals 10.1% of the population (New York Department of Health, 2022). As for the selected community, Midtown, smokers account for 11% of the population, which is similar to other boroughs (New York Department of Health, 2018). Various social, ecological, and political issues contribute to the problem since this behavior is the highest when people are 35-44 years old, have low education levels, are unemployed, and have low income (New York Department of Health, 2022). Society sees improvement because the prevalence of smoking has kept decreasing over the last few years. This topic is aligned with Healthy People 2030 because one of its objectives is to reduce tobacco use among adults (US Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). This information explains why the given topic is under consideration.
Based on the information above, the project relies on the following research question: What is the relationship between gender and assessing the negative impact of this activity on health? The following hypothesis has been developed: Women are more likely than men to believe that smoking is more harmful to health. The discussion below will explain what research activities have been undertaken to answer the question and test the hypothesis.
Literature Review
Many scholarly articles are devoted to the selected issue, and two of them should receive specific attention. According to Drope et al. (2018), smoking is more prevalent among men of different socioeconomic groups. This finding is aligned with the article by O’Keeffe et al. (2018), who indicate that smoking-related mortality is higher among males. This information demonstrates that females are typically less subject to this harmful behavior, and the hypothesis was developed based on this suggestion.
Methods
The research question is as follows: What is the relationship between gender and smoking as a risk factor for lung cancer? Two variables are considered, and they include gender and smoking. Testing whether women are more cautious regarding the impact of smoking on their health required particular research activities. Thus, the author and colleagues developed a Google Form survey to analyze the identified question and collect additional demographic information. The author sent an access link to five friends (18 years old and above). In total, 118 individuals (73 females, 44 males, and 1 non-binary person) answered the questions, and the research project focuses on evidence from all these people. For the purposes of this project, the data obtained from the non-binary person was not included. The participants were asked to rate the impact of various behaviors on their health, and each possible response was assigned some points. The following system was used: No Effect (1 point), A Small Effect (2 points), Neutral Effect (3 points), An Effect (4 points), and A Strong Effect (5 points).
Results/Data
Table 1 below presents the statistical results of the survey. The findings are indicated for each sex category, and the table demonstrates how many individuals assessed the impact of smoking on individual health. In addition to that, the visual indicates the percentage values of these responses in relation to the total number of answers from a specific gender category. At first sight, attention is drawn to the fact that more men (65.9%) than women (50.7%) stipulated that smoking had a strong effect on health. This information can indicate that it is impossible to prove the research hypothesis, but further research presented additional details. Since each answer is associated with a particular number of points, it is possible to calculate the mean values for the two genders. Thus, the mean value was 4.25 for males and 4.39 for females. Thus, women consider smoking more impactful on their health compared to men, even though not a big difference exists.
Table 1: Survey Results
Conclusion/Recommendations
The research project has found significant information that can be helpful for the health of society. Description analysis has demonstrated that women tend to believe that smoking is more impactful on people’s health. Thus, one can state that the research question has been answered, and the hypothesis has been proved. The calculated means for the sex categories support this statement, and this suggestion is aligned with the existing literature. It is possible to highlight the significance of these findings since they can show how it is possible to reduce the prevalence of smoking among men. A suitable strategy is to make more males understand that the behavior under analysis is harmful to them. Since historical data shows a decline in the number of smokers, this strategy seems promising to improve health outcomes. This research project is a strong start of a large study, which denotes that fully-fledged research can be undertaken based on the available information. Furthermore, an accompanying study can help focus on the connection among gender, smoking assessment, and health outcomes. For example, one can analyze which gender is more subject to lung cancer because of smoking.
References
Drope, J., Liber, A. C., Cahn, Z., Stoklosa, M., Kennedy, R., Douglas, C. E., Henson, R., & Drope, J. (2018). Who’s still smoking? Disparities in adult cigarette smoking prevalence in the United States. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 68(2), 106-115. Web.
New York Department of Health. (2018). Midtown: Community health profiles 2018 [PDF document]. Web.
New York Department of Health. (2022). Cigarette smoking [PDF document]. Web.
O’Keeffe, L. M., Taylor, G., Huxley, R. R., Mitchell, P., Woodward, M., & Peters, S. A. (2018). Smoking as a risk factor for lung cancer in women and men: A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, 8(10), 1-12. Web.
US Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Healthy people 2030. Web.