Young India Network for Good Health

Prof.T K Thomas 04 Jun, 2019    “with the growing young population in India, it becomes extremely important to involve youth and understand their needs at the policy level. This can help them to effectively deal with the cross cutting issues like linkages between alcoholism, tobacco use and tuberculosis. The government must make the political decision to put youth first to make the universal health coverage a reality.” The annual World No Tobacco Day was observed on 31st May. The day is observed by the World Health Organization [WHO] and global partners as an opportunity to raise awareness on the harmful and deadly effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure and to discourage the use of tobacco in any form. This year’s focus for the day was, “Tobacco and lung health”. Everyone knows how tobacco affects our lungs. The WHO release says, the campaign will increase awareness on, “the negative impact that tobacco has on people’s lung health, from cancer, to chronic respirator

Radio DATE (Drug, Alcohol & Tobacco Education) "About 4% tobacco users in Goa and about 6% users in Karnataka quit their habit after hearing the programme. About 98% to 99% of the listeners expressed that such programmes should continue." The project Radio DATE was a collaborative effort of Indian Council of Medical Research and All India Radio. The acronym DATE stood for Drugs, Alcohol, and Tobacco Education. The radio programme was in the form of 30 weekly episodes of 20 minutes each. Ten episodes focussed on tobacco, eight each on alcohol and drugs, and two episodes on legal aspects. The introductory and concluding episodes touched all the three themes. The episodes were broadcast from 84 stations of All India Radio (out of 104 existing at that time) at prime time, simultaneously in sixteen languages.  The prototype was developed in Hindi and was sent to selected radio stations of All India Radio for translation in regional language, as per the specifie