Adult Smoking in Hatch, New Mexico

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Community Description

Hatch is a small village located in New Mexico, and it sit on an area that is 3.1 square miles. As of 2021 there were approximately 2000 residents living in this village. Originally Hatch was known as Santa Barbara, there were many relocations of the residents due to raids, they moved to different parts but in 1875 they found themselves in the same land and they decided to name it Hatch. Over the years the town has grown both in name and economically because of the variety of peppers that they grow, hence the name Chile Capital of the World. The average age of the people living in Hatch is 24 years.

There are different ethnic groups in Hatch but the largest groups are Alaska native, American Indian and African Americans comprise 0.409% of the population, white non-Hispanic comprise of 12.3% while the White Hispanics are the majority with 80.4% (Data USA, 2019). The majority of the population are US citizens with a home ownership rate of 79.7% (Data USA, 2019). The income that is achieved by most households is $40,885 although 28.9% of the families in Hatch live in poverty. The population consist on farmers who earn their living though farming of chiles, onions, corn and cotton. They use irrigation ditches to irrigate their farms with the help of water sourced from Rio Grande and two other lakes.

Community Assessment

Windshield Survey

Boundaries: Hatch is 64 kilometers of Las Cruces in the northwest and 130 kilometers of El Paso, Texas in the northwest in Don Ana County.

Housing and zoning: Houses in Hatch had a median valuation of $83,100 in 2019, which was slightly lower than the national average. Nonetheless, this was an increase from $78,800 in 2018. On the upper side, the rate of home ownership was higher for Hatch compared to the rest of the country at 79.7% and 64.1% respectively (Data USA, 2019).

Space use: Main use for land in Hatch is for farming of cotton, corn, onions and mainly chiles. Hatch is known for its wide variety of peppers that are grown. The other land is used for settlement and a small project of commercial real estate.

Common area: Hatch has small common areas like the New Mexican flair where art is displayed and showcasing of their chiles. There is also the village museum where people get to learn about historical events. Last but not least the Hatch valley where the Hatch Chile festival is held every year.

Transportation: There is public transportation in Hatch town as it was seen as a necessity to improve the living standards of the residents. There are several services available like the bus service and limousine and chauffer services. As for public schools there are buses that transport the students to and from school. The bus services also connect the town to other towns like Las Cruises.

Service centers: There was a senior center where senior residents go and have discussions on different issues regarding them from time to time the youth also gather there to have meetings. Country Sunset is another center for the elderly where they are well taken care of.

Stores: There are a number of shopping centers in Hatch, New Mexico including a village market. The stores in the surrounding mean that the entire neighborhood can depend on the stores for everything they need. Chile Fanatic is the best place that most people consumer their fast foods, which means that they do not have another option. Iteratively, this means that individuals who live in this area do not have option when they need to prepare their own food. In this regard these cannot dictate on their diet or nutritional eating. In terms of assessing the community health needs, it is important that the community of Hatch, Mexico rethinks its food consumption to enhance its public health outcomes.

Street Scene: There are ever quiet streets than you can find in Hatch, New York. In the village, most people own cars that they use when they are not on farms. In most cases people prefer walking to whatever they are destined to, to ensure that they also keep healthy. Farming, fishing, and forestry is what constitutes the villages main economic activity, which is why these people travel a lot physical. With these economic activities, it is expected that these people have to walk a long way every time.

Community Growth: Fairly, the community has so grown so well. In essence, people have been reproducing at the same rate year over year. Having visited the village, it was apparent that the households were growing at the same rate. With this going forward, it means that the health problems will not last long. It is apparent that in the next few years, the healthcare of this village will be highly sustainable. During the visit it appeared that most of the families were enjoying better sanitation services than most parts of the country. Clearly kept up is the phrase that can best describe that village. In fact, from my observation that should be a model community when it comes to the US public health. I was so astonished about the village that I could not make it on this commentary.

Race Ethnicity, Religion: The majority of the people who live here are Indian by origin. The reason? The village derived its name form a famous Indian fighter who made the village a place to relish and a place that everybody with an Indian origin could believe in up to today. The Indians connect with the village and having been some of the most indigenous people in the United States, they have forever believed in their traditional medicines.

Community Personality: Peace and calmness are what describes this village very well. The people living around here are very harmonious. A lot of activities will be going in here, which allows people to be on a good fight for their health. Most of these people will be in their backyards, which allows them to be on their feet exercising or taking time to relax. Mentally, these people look like they are stable considering that they always welcome to their homes. Tobacco smoking in the United States is prevalent, especially among men. According to Parisis et al. (2019), the prevalence of tobacco smoking in the country leads to numerous diseases. Examples of diseases associated with tobacco smoking in the U.S. include respiratory diseases, lung cancer, and throat cancer, among others. Smokers are at a higher risk of developing tobacco-related diseases than non-smokers (Parisis et al., 2019). The government of the United States has tried several cessation attempts on tobacco, but none has been successful due to its impact on the economy of the country. Tobacco is responsible for creating numerous jobs for many Americans and helps the country to feature well in the international market. According to Parisis et al. (2019), although the health hazards of tobacco remain high, its economic value overrides the hazards; thus, it cannot be wiped out of the market.

Literature review

The article by Li et al. (2020) explores tobacco smoking in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. People with a history of smoking tobacco were cited to be at a higher risk of contracting coronavirus. The reason for the high risk of contracting coronavirus for tobacco smokers is the effects that tobacco smoke has on the lungs. The smoke sniffed from tobacco weakens the lungs and increases the severity of any respiratory disease. According to Li et al. (2020), coronavirus patients with a history of smoking experience more negative impacts of the COVID-19 than non-smokers and are at a higher risk of losing a life. Besides, coronavirus patients with a history of smoking required a more specialized form of treatment in the various healthcare facilities, which turned out to be a financial burden to the government.

Problem Statement

Public health is one of the principal considerations when assessing the needs of a community (Community Tool Box, 2022). Adult smoking is one of the health risk factors with the highest prevalence in Dona Ana County in New Mexico where Hatch is located. Data shows that the county has an adult smoking prevalence rate of 15.8% (Data USA, 2019). This is significantly higher than the national average of 12.5% as reported by the CDC (2022). With the higher prevalence of smoking, adults in Hatch village are at a higher risk of acquiring infections and illnesses associated with tobacco use. In addition to the risk of cancer, the residents are also at the risk of acquiring chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, lung disease, and tuberculosis among others. This implies that reducing smoking could result to better health outcomes in the village.

Intervention and Evaluation

Intervention

It is imperative that approaches to community improvement are based on evidence (Schoon, Porta & Schaffer, 2019).Most people in the Hatch, New Mexico do not know that they can overcome that they can overcome the smoking problem. Considering that these people exercise a lot, they think that the exercises will have a reversing effect on their smoking behavior. However, it is apparent that this village is one of the most smoking compared to the rest of the country. On this regard, it needs to ensure that it reverses its smoking problem. This proposition can be achieved on a number of propositions. Firstly, the individuals who are smoking need to seek help from individuals who have stopped smoking. Individuals who have stopped smoking are the best option for those seeking to stop smoking. However, it is necessary that individuals who are smoking to make a decision for quitting to smoke before they can seek help. This premise is made on the consideration that the decision to quit smoking is made innately and is not mostly affected by the external factors such as being asked to stop the habit. The people I talked with the village told me that they were unable to stop smoking just because they were asked to stop smoking by someone else. Moreover, it was clear from the people of the local community that the persuasion to stop smoking was one of the hindrances to solving this problem. This means that other strategies need to be involved in solving this problem. Most importantly, thinking beyond the telling of people that smoking is a bad behavior could be a solution.

Evaluation

Evaluation of community improvement programs should consider the achievements in the creation of sustainable approaches that focus on the primary causes of chronic diseases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). In this regard, individual advice and counselling could be a better starting point considering that dealing with an individual personally works in a way much better than addressing a person in the public. Most of the people that opened up during this survey indicated that they wanted to share their problem privately rather than it being addressed publicly. Moreover, more individuals wanted to be provided with nicotine replacements as they improved on their smoking behavior.

This survey recommends that smoking be addressed on a personal level and privately. Privately, persons seeking help to quit smoking should be taken with the utmost urgency considering that it is a public health problem. Moreover, nicotine replacements should be introduced in the village to curtail the behavior. The replacements will ensure that the residents have a new way of reducing their depression, which could have been facilitating the behavior. This intervention will go a long a way in ensuring that the problem is solved.

References

CDC. (2022). Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults in the United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2010). Community health assessment and group evaluation (change) action guide: Building a foundation of knowledge to prioritize community needs. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Web.

Community Tool Box. (2022). Toolkits. Ku.edu. Web.

Data USA. (2019). Hatch, NM. Datausa.io. Web.

Li, J., Long, X., Zhang, Q., Fang, X., Li, N., Fedorova, B.,& & Lin, Z. (2021). Tobacco smoking confers a risk for severe COVID19 unexplainable by pulmonary imaging. Journal of internal medicine, 289(4), 574-583.

Parisis, D., Bernier, C., Chasset, F., & Arnaud, L. (2019). Impact of tobacco smoking upon disease risk, activity and therapeutic response in systemic lupus erythematosus: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Autoimmunity Reviews, 18(11), 102393.

Schoon, P.M., Porta, C.M., & Schaffer, M. A. (2019). Population-based public health clinical manual: The Henry Street model for nurses (3^rd ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Sigma Theta Tau International. ISBN 9781945157752

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