| Abstract |
In the context of health policies it is supported that de-stigmatization is vital to the
achievement of public health objectives. Stigmatization exacerbates morbidity and
mortality and raises barriers between health professionals and patients. In recent years
however, the public discourse in the case of tobacco control appears to be growing in
opposite direction. The denormalization of smoking marks the socially unacceptable
habit and thus leading to stigmatization of smokers. Some believe that in the case of
smoking, the mobilization of stigma may effectively reduce the prevalence of
behaviors associated with illness and death. However, the moral acceptability of such
a policy is problematic because it opposes some fundamental ethical principles, first
to that of beneficence and nonmaleficience and further raises the issue of violation of
human rights, the process of stigmatization implicated in human right to dignity. The
aim of this paper is to answer whether, from an ethical perspective, the stigmatization
of smokers could be an instrument of public health policy to combat the scourge of
smoking.
A part of the difficulty for a discussion related to the moral acceptance of stigma in
public health issues is identified in the multiplicity on theoretical frameworks and
models. This vagueness in conceptualizing both ends in a variety of descriptive
models which can arise different normative considerations. The considerations of
Goffman, Jones and Scambler for stigmatization, and Link and Phelan who unlike
others place greater emphasis and recognize stigma as a social process that sustains
and reproduces the relations of power and control, thus giving us a 'picture' of the
problem of stigma and how stigma ties with smoking.
In the investigation of the matter will accept the theoretical framework of Powers
and Faden which recognizes that social justice is at the heart of public health and is
interdependent with human welfare, which is a function of six dimensions (health,
personal safety, reasoning, respect, attachment and self-determination). Starting from
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this consideration as the basis for applying the framework of Childress and colleagues
that characterizes not an absolutist and contextualist approach but instead a
presumptivist approach, where values can be rebutted if specified the justification
conditions (effectiveness, necessity, proportionality, impartiality), will conclude that
the use of stigmatizing of the smoker cannot be an instrument of public health policy
to combat the scourge of smoking.
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Ο στιγματισμός ως μέσο πρόληψης εναντίον των συμπεριφορών "υψηλού κινδύνου" : η περίπτωση του καπνίσματος
