Public Awareness and Public Education - Essay Example

?NEED FOR ORAL CANCER AWARENESS PROGRAMME Introduction The need for public awareness and public education on oral cancer cannot be over emphasised. This is because of the risks that are involved in contracting the disease. It is reported that as many as 35,000 new Americans contract oral cancer every year (National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, 2010). The prevalence rate in other parts of the world is even larger as according to Pankaj (2010), India has a reported oral cancer cases of approximately 1,000,000 . What this means is that there is an urgent need of controlling the disease as the disease is highly fatal. In the United Kingdom for instance, some 1,985 deaths are recorded each year from oral cancer (Cancer Research UK, 2012). A careful pre-data collection observation has brought the researcher to the realisation that there are several people in the streets and public places of United Kingdom who lack adequate knowledge of what oral cancer is, the symptoms associated with oral cancer, the risk factors that come with oral cancer, and how dangerous the disease could be to their health. More surprising is the fact that the absence of adequate knowledge about the disease is even prevalent in various university campuses. This therefore raises the need for urgent awareness creation research and campaign among undergraduate students in the United Kingdom. In the current review of literature, a number of information is going to be included. It must be emphasised that the scope of information to be included in the literature review are largely dependent on the urgency of the level of awareness that students need to have on the disease. This is because the more people are made aware of areas of oral cancer they do not know, the better their chances of prohibiting themselves from falling victims to those aspects of oral cancer (Mahboobi and Ogden, 2011). To this end some of the key information that will be included in the literature review would be the available statistical database on oral cancer. There shall also be information various ways by which people of different educational background can guard themselves against contracting oral cancer. Even more, the researcher shall delve into various risk factors associated with oral cancer as well as reviewing various disease control measures. Furthermore, existing literature shall be reviewed on the impact of health worker awareness on eradication of oral cancer. Having noted the importance that awareness creation among public health workers would generate, the literature review shall further look at various models that would work best in an awareness creation campaign among students and health workers. By stating that literature from existing researchers shall be reviewed, the researcher is making the implication that the selected literature shall be thoroughly summarised on the information they put out, after which they shall be compared and contrasted to each other. This would be necessary to bring out various knowledge bases about different aspects of the disease. The researcher shall also go ahead to identify major limitations that are associated with the various works of literature that are reviewed. The rationale for the entire research and this accompanying literature review is thus to identify areas about the disease where awareness creation is needed most and finding models to go about the awareness creation exercise. This is directly linked to the research question that proponents that “is there a need for oral cancer awareness programme?” Search Strategy Keywords: Awareness models, awareness programmes, awareness, knowledge, mouth cancer, oral cancer policy, Oral cancer, oral promotion, public awareness, risk factors, undergraduate students. All in all, there were four major stages in the search of database for information. The first stage had to do with the identification of key and major words that the researcher was going to search for information about. There were as many keywords as possible, some of which have been listed above. The researcher went on to identify major database searches to use. There were two major search categories found, which were online search and print search. Some of the websites used include Google Search, Google Scholar, and Glasgow Caledonian website. Some of the print sources used were books from the Glasgow Caledonian library. But the online search were going to be the major database as they contain as many readily refined information on the topic area as possible (Peterson, 2008). The researcher designed a search phrase, which was given as “oral cancer awareness among undergraduate students”. Initially, this came out with as many as 120,000 results. The operation agents, OR, ANT and NOT were used to sieve the results. This could scale the results down to about half. Consequently, the search scope was limited to 2007 to 2012, after which results came down to less than 1,000. Using vital information from the abstracts of the works, an inclusion and exclusion mechanism brought the number down to 250. Subsequently, the researcher landed on 40 major sources to be used for the literature review. Review of the Literature Oral Cancer Various researchers and cancer related agencies have come up with several statistical works on oral cancer. Whiles some of these have to do with real facts on the disease, others look at statistics on the awareness rate of the disease. For example Monterio et al (2012) give their statistics based on the awareness level of oral cancer among the populace of Portugal whiles the Cancer Research UK (2012), Pankaj (2010) and National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (2010) give out statistics based on the rates of infection. According to a survey conducted by Monterio et al (2012) 602 using adult respondents, up to 99% of the respondents are aware of breast cancer and have adequate knowledge on its risk factors whiles only 68.6% of the same sample size have adequate awareness and education on oral cancer. This trend could be the result of the high rates of infections, which the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (2010) posit that 35,000 new Americans are infected each year and that there are up to one million Indians with the disease, with 1,985 English dying every year of the disease (Pankaj, 2010; Cancer Research UK, 2012). For a long time to come, the death rates from oral cancer may continue to be high because WebMD (2012) reports that “the overall 1-year survival rate for patients with oral cancer is 81%, with the 5- and 10-year survival rates being 56% and 41% respectively”. Adequate awareness on the risk factors associated with oral cancer is a giant step towards the prevention of oral cancer (Pavia et al, 2006). This is because the risk factors identify people who need extra cautions as far as possibility of infections is concerned. To this end Abdul Rahman et al (2012), mentions that smokers and users of alcohol stand the highest chance of getting infected with oral cancer. In contrast, the WebMD notes that there are smokeless users of tobacco and other substances that stand high risks of infection. It states that “users of dip, snuff, or chewing tobacco products are 50 times more likely to develop cancers of the cheek, gums, and lining of the lips” (WebMD, 2012). Imperatively, the risk factors really have to do with the use of certain drugs and substances and not necessarily as to whether these substances are smoked or not. On their part, (UK National Screening Committee, 2012) emphasises the fact that families with long history of infections with oral cancers are at risk of contracting the disease. At young ages also, it is worth being aware that excessive exposure to the sun could increase the risk of contracting oral cancer. Primary Research and Related Research: Public Awareness The ultimate effect of getting infected with oral cancer is death. This is because there is a very high mortality rate associated with oral cancer infections. The WebMD (2012) notes for instance that for as many people as contract oral cancer, 81% of them would loss their lives within one year to four years of getting infected. The survival rate in patients for five to nine years is 56%, whiles survivors who spend up to ten years and beyond is pegged at 41%. Regardless of this, it is noted that should the rate of awareness on the disease be raised for people to seek early treatment for their disease, chances are that they are going to spend longer years and actually be assured of healthy lives (Cancer Cure Foundation, 2012). A little more healthy living is also said to be a useful way of ensuring prolonged life and minimising the effect of oral cancer such as endangered sores on the lips, gums and other parts of the oral cavity (Chowdhury, Hossain and Croucher, 2010). The treatment given to oral cancer depends on a lot of factors. The first of these factors has to do with the stage or extent of infection (Hertramp et al, 2012). The doctor also has to consider the size of the tumour in question and the areas of the body to which the tumour has spread. As part of the treatment and the staging process, it may be necessary for the doctor to undertake a couple of laboratory tests and undertake endoscopy, which WebMD (2012) explains that “the doctor uses a thin, lighted tube (endoscope) to check your throat, windpipe, and lungs.” At its most critical parts, most general practitioner doctors prefer to refer patients to specialist doctors who take victims through radiation therapy or chemotherapy. As an interventional strategy, using chemotherapy treatment would generally aim at killing the cells around the infected area of the disease (Al Dubai et al, 2012). When the public is educated and well informed about oral cancer and its attendant causes and prevention, it is said that public awareness is being raised (Moynihan and Henry, 2006). Some of the researchers whose works were reviewed pointed to the fact that the best target group to have in raising awareness on oral cancer is the educated undergraduate population (Tombak, 2012). Their argument follows the fact that when educated people have awareness on a subject such as oral cancer, it becomes easier for them to also transfer their knowledge to other people around them. Using the undergraduate class as a sample size for instance, it can be assured that these people, once they graduate would transfer their education to other people they work with. On the contrast, there are some researchers who hold the view that the best people to target in the awareness creation should be health practitioners (Wolinsky, 2005). To these researchers also, they hold the convection that it is the health practitioners who offer different forms of health assistance to patients and so it is always necessary to give them enough awareness so that they would transfer their knowledge to treating their patients. In Conclusion: The whole literature review has been a useful exercise in coming to terms with some of the major statistics available on oral cancer. These statistics depict the need for drafting urgent interventions towards the prevention of the disease as the increasing trend of infections pose an epidemic threat to the world’s population. It has been established that some of risk factors associated with contracting oral cancer include smoking, alcohol intake and Betel Quid. As these risk factors bring about the disease, there are some core measures that can be taken to treat or control the disease. Some of these were mentioned to include radiation therapy, or chemotherapy. The review actually outlined how crucial the effect of oral cancer could be if not treated at the early stages. Some of the risks associated with the disease have been identified to include permanent sores to the lips, tongue, sinuses and the pharynx. The literature review has established that once health workers and other educated people like undergraduate students are educated about the disease, there is a better chance that the disease will be well known among the population of the country as they are more likely to spread the awareness campaign (Cancer Cure Foundation, 2012). To this end, it is necessary to adapt models such as integrated curriculum and public seminars to raise awareness on oral cancer. A major shortfall and gap that was identified with most of the literature however had to do with adequate information on what the risks of post-oral cancer treatment could be. As public education and awareness, it is important that every bit of the disease is known, including how risky a failed treatment could be (Moynihan and Henry, 2006). REFERENCE LIST National Institute of Health. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (2011)Oral Cancer (MD 20892-2190), Bethesda [online]. Available at:http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/oralhealth/topics/oralcancer/ [Accessed 17 October 2012]. Cancer Research UK.2012, "Soaring mouth cancer rates highlight need for greater dentists' awareness". Available from: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerinfo/news/archive/pressrelease/2012-09-26-soaring-mouth-cancer-rates-highlight-need-for-greater-awareness[Accessed 10 October 2012]. 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