As part of its mandate to control the use of tobacco in order to minimize its effect on populations, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/ World Health Organization (WHO) has instituted a hiring policy that favours non-smokers.
“Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death in the world today. As tobacco use continues to rise in many parts of the world, it becomes increasingly more important that governments working jointly with civil society implement the mandates of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to protect their citizens from tobacco and educate them about the dangers associated with its use,” PAHO’s website states.
The Director of PAHO’s local office Dr William Adu-Krow, explained that the organization maintains a smoke-free environment, and, as their job advertisements state, smokers and users of any form of tobacco are not usually recruited.
Dr Adu-Krow, however, in answer to an enquiry about the discriminatory implications of such a policy, stated that although the aforementioned are true and, as a matter of preference, non-smokers are given priority, if an individual applies and is the only highly qualified person interviewed for the job, the organization is inclined to hire the person.
In such a case, or in the case that an employee picks up the habit later on, the Director said that PAHO works with such individuals to help them overcome the practice.
“We have a smoke-free environment so we don’t even say, have places that people can leave and go and smoke, no you cannot smoke on our premises,” he stated.
Although the requirement is strict enough that the disclaimer is mentioned at the bottom of all PAHO’s ads, interviewees are not screened. Rather, hires are done strictly on the basis of what a candidate states to be true on their application.
In the wider context, PAHO is currently working on the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, which will assess how many young people are smokers and what can be done to help them quit the habit. Adu-Krow explained that one of the techniques that will be used to achieve this is the Health Belief Model (HBM)
HBM, according to the University of Twente’s website, is a “psychological model that attempts to explain and predict health behaviours. This is done by focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals.”
“So we are using some social constructs. One of them is the health belief model—that is, if someone knows that something is dangerous for their health and the person knows that if I do A, B or C or I don’t do D, G and F, I’ll have a better health, they are more likely to adopt the positive behaviour. So we are now testing that to see what happens,” Adu-Krow said.
Currently, the Ministry of Public Health, in collaboration with PAHO, has been running public service announcements warning of the dangers of smoking.
