On 29 Aug 2000, at 9:08, Concha Colomer wrote:

> We, health professionals, should think about the complete tobacco picture,
> with the different economical and political existing interest and not be
> naïf and not let them to use us. Do we think really that tobacco is the
> most important population's health problem in the world? Does the
> magnitude of the problem justify fight against smoking habits to be the
> priority at WHO, European Union, and most of the health strategies at
> international, national and local level?.

Concha, I join you in these questions. While tobacco use is a major
health problem, it is certainly not the key problem of public health at
all, neither nationally and certainly not globally.

Social determinants in health are increasingly neglected, and one has
to wonder why this is so.

Why do we have these difficulties to stand up and tell the people what
we know from our research? Why do we always take the easy way-out
and focus on one particular individual behavior?

Looks like we're missing the point ...


Eberhard Wenzel MA PhD
International Public HealthWatch
Griffith University
School of Public Health
Meadowbrook, Qld. 4131
Australia
Tel.:  +61-7-3382 1026
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Web-site International Public HealthWatch at:
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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
Voltaire (1694-1778)