Uzhgorod/Corvallis Partners Get the Word Out Against Smoking

By Victoria Merkel

AIHA's Uzhgorod/Corvallis partners officially launched their smoking prevention campaign in a celebration held at the Uzhgorod University Family Medicine Training Center, January 27. Over 60 community members, including physicians, students, teachers, local government officials, and representatives of the local media, gathered to learn more about the activities of the Uzhgorod and Velykiy Berezny Youth Smoking Prevention Coalition.

Coalition Member Kateryna Bizilya, a teacher at Uzhgorod School #1, opened the ceremony by reading from a letter written by US Partnership Coordinator Louise Muscato, who was unable to attend the launch. "This is only the beginning," Muscato wrote. "I know that our campaign will be a success, and our hopes are that we have created a model campaign that will be replicated throughout all of Ukraine." A lively atmosphere filled the room, which was decorated with anti-tobacco posters created by local high school students as part of the Coalition's poster competition. A physician and a painter-both of whom recently quit smoking-played folk music on the piano and the synthesizer.

Bizilya delivered a speech about a citizen's right to breathe clean air, as well as discussed the Coalition's beginnings. She explained that the Uzhgorod/Corvallis partnership began to plan the smoking prevention campaign in November 2002, when they held a workshop to explore the ways that hospitals, family medicine centers, schools, and private and public organizations can raise awareness about the dangers of smoking. The group carved out plans for reaching kids through the media and school curricula, as well as by enforcing policies and regulations against smoking. One plan that emerged from the meeting was the establishment of a Coalition. A few weeks later, the Coalition was formed, joining 27 teachers, school administrators, physicians, high school and university students, local and district government officials and one popular singer, together against tobacco. To tap into the insight and creativity that adolescents can bring to the campaign, the Coalition organized a 14-member Uzhgorod Peer Mentor Group.

At the ceremony, Peer Mentor Kate Turjanytsa, a ninth grader, and Ksenya Chopey, a medical student, discussed a survey the Peer Mentor Group conducted in January. The 66-question survey serves as a measure of knowledge and attitudes about smoking and personal experiences using tobacco. The group surveyed 413 ninth-graders at six local high schools, including schools with four different ethnic affiliations-Hungarian, Roma, Russian, and Ukrainian-and 350 university students to get baseline data.

Although the Peer Mentor Group had not yet tallied the results of the college students' responses, Turjanytsa and Chopey used pie charts created by the Uzhgorod/Corvallis partnership's Learning Resource Center Coordinator Oleg Dobosh, to present the high school students' survey results. When asked how old they were when they began smoking, 29% of the students polled said they had never smoked, and a quarter of the remaining 71% said they started at age 12 or 13. Regarding knowledge about the health effects of smoking, 65% said they are sure smoking is detrimental. 27% said they think smoking is detrimental, just 4% said they felt smoking was probably not harmful, and 4% said they are sure that smoking is not harmful.

Although those attending the ceremony know that smoking is unhealthy, Coalition Member Maria Dolgosh, a cardiologist, decided to illustrate exactly how smoking affects a person internally. She gave a presentation on heart health, using X-rays to prove her point. The peer mentors also promoted the message of smoking being unhealthy-but in an entertaining, rather than scientific, way. They sang "Killing Me Slowly With His Smoke," a song similar to "Killing Me Softly," but with the lyrics altered to warn about the dangers of tobacco. The group then performed a series of skits, including a spoof of a cigarette commercial, using a wooden camel in place of the famous and controversial character Joe Camel. Two school administrators at the program said they were so impressed by the entertainment that they invited the Coalition and peer mentors to come to their schools and perform for their students.

When it was time to end the launch and have some coffee, Bizilya says the participants, including Lyubomyra Megela, vice head of the educational authorities, and Alen Panov, Uzhgorod's vice mayor, asked the participants to continue conferring about the prevention of smoking instead. "They were all raising their hands, wanting to share some thoughts. I think that was the best [thing about the event], that people were so involved in the discussions," she says.

Some of the Coalition's plans are developing patient education materials for use in clinics and hospitals; holding a patient education conference, at which healthcare providers learn smoking cessation techniques; conducting a workshop for Uzhgorod health teachers; and holding a performance of anti-smoking skits, songs, and speeches at a park in downtown Uzhgorod.

The Peer Mentor Group is looking to expand the ways they foster teens' physical and emotional health. With help from the Uzhgorod/Corvallis partnership, they distributed a second survey to 500 Uzhgorod Region youths, to find out which developmental assets teenagers believe they have. The survey, developed by Search Institute, lists 40 building blocks of healthy development, and teens mark "yes" or "no" in response to each building block listed. The 40 items are divided into external assets-which measure a teenager's support, empowerment, boundaries, expectations, and constructive use of time-and internal assets-which concern commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity. Corvallis partners are now working with a Western Oregon University graduate student who specializes in this type of survey, to analyze the data and determine areas for interventions to help Uzhgorod teenagers.

Later this month, the Coalition will measure its successes during a mid-campaign review. Already, their work has been fruitful. Thanks to the efforts of Coalition Member Anatoly Synyshyn, head of communal property for the region, two Uzhgorod cafes now prohibit smoking, and Dolgosh arranged for anti-smoking stickers to be placed on city buses.

Perhaps the greatest sign of success was that one of the Oblast Health Department's top officials announced that he himself quit smoking because of the effective campaign, and two peer mentors were able to convince their parents to quit. Both parents have been successful in not smoking for three weeks.

Bizilya says she is excited that her son Mishka has quit smoking as well. "I'm so proud of him," she says. "He's now an advocate for our smoking prevention campaign."

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