Abstract

Tobacco-related mortality in India is among the highest in the world. In this photo, a young girl in Kerala State in South India reads a poster which explains the dangers of smoking and the harms of secondhand smoke to women and children. This social movement, spearheaded by anthropologists and public health specialists, has reached her village. In this poster and through various activities, community members are asked to join together and ban smoking inside their homes. As part of this intervention, school children are provided education about tobacco, and are asked to talk to their fathers about not smoking inside the home to protect their family members from the harm of secondhand smoke. Ethno-graphic research in Kerala, in which I was involved, revealed that daughters were able to “touch the hearts” of their fathers, and were able to convey a stronger message than their mothers. I took this photograph when I working as a Co-Principal Investigator on Quit Tobacco India.