ТЮТЮНОПУШЕНЕТО КАТО ПОВЕДЕНЧЕСКИ ФАКТОР НА РИСКА –ЗНАЧИМОСТ И РАЗПРОСТРАНЕНИЕ
SMOKING AS A BEHAVIORAL RISK FACTOR -SIGNIFICANCE AND DISTRIBUTION

Summary/Abstract: Modern healthcare faces a serious challenge related to the progressive severity of chronic non-infectious diseases. Longer life expectancy and "modernization" are associated with the impact of risk factors such as smoking, alcohol abuse, immobility, stress and unhealthy eating, which contribute to a "global epidemic" of chronic non-infectious diseases. The rate at which diabetes, cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases become leading causes of death in populations that only a generation ago fought malnutrition and infectious diseases, illustrates the speed with which socio-economic and cultural changes affect health. The growth of this group of diseases increases their negative impact on socio-economic development, and poverty, globalization, urbanization and population aging are the main factors amplifying this phenomenon. The World Health Organization identifies the determinants of health as biological, social, cultural, economic, genetic and behavioral factors, including those which derived from living environment. In this regard, there are offered recommendations to limit the impact of risk factors and health imbalances by improving living conditions, making serious efforts to deal with inconsistencies in distribution of powers, funds and resources, measuring and analyzing the determinants of health and assessing the impact of the taken actions. The policy for prevention of chronic non-infectious diseases should cover several main areas related to improving the determinants of health (social, behavioral, environmental), inclusion of the population to a healthy lifestyle, development and realization of programs for prevention and early diagnostics and application of interdisciplinary models for providing medical care to patients with chronic diseases. The main feature of this group of diseases is their mass manifestation as a result of many causes that act long-term through the socio-biological path of a man. Risk factors do not arise in isolation from each other and do not act alone. The chain of events leading to an unfavorable outcome includes close and distant causes, as well as many mediating factors and elements. In many cases one factor is a risk for more than one disease, and diseases are often a result of the combined action of many reasons and predisposing factors - so-called "Multiple causality" of diseases. This concept is the basis for building causal networks or models for the occurrence of a disease.

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