Reframing Community Health Concerns

Who could have imagined four decades ago that smoking would shift from an issue of private behavior enjoyed by many almost everywhere to an all-out assault on Big Tobacco? U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop toppled the first domino when he joined the American Lung Association in publishing its first report on the negative health effects of smoking forty years ago on January 11, 1964. Warning labels on cigarette packages followed as smokers have been pushed farther and farther away from nonsmokers in virtually every public place in Maine, including most workplaces, restaurants, shopping centers, hospitals, bars and even bingo halls.

The damaging effects of smoking on the smoker herself are now recognized as damaging to the community at large, as evidenced by rising insurance and health care costs borne by all. Secondhand smoke is likened to toxic waste. Now even McDonald's is taking note of its health conscious customers. Move over Supersized fries and make way for low-carb Fruit Parfaits.

We must ask how the movement against domestic violence can replicate the success of these and other initiatives that have changed the way people see themselves as keepers of their own and the community's good physical and financial health.