Why Secondary Schools Do Not Implement Far-Reaching Smoke-Free Policies: Exploring Deep Core, Policy Core, and Secondary Beliefs of School Staff in the Netherlands

Background: Secondary schools that implement smoke-free policies are confronted with students who start smoking outside their premises. One solution is to complement smoke-free policies with prohibitions for all students to leave the school area during school hours, technically making school hours a smoke-free period. However, there are strikingly few Dutch secondary schools that implement this approach. This study explores why staff members in the Netherlands decide not to implement smoke-free school hours for all students. Method: We interviewed 13 staff members, with different functions, from four secondary schools. The analysis was informed by the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to delve into the values, rationales, and assumptions of staff with the aim to identify deep core, policy core, and secondary beliefs. Results: We identified six beliefs. Two deep core beliefs are that schools should provide adolescents the freedom to learn how to responsibly use their personal autonomy and that schools should only interfere if adolescents endanger or bother others. Three policy core beliefs identified included the following: that smoking is not a pressing issue for schools to deal with; that schools should demarcate their jurisdiction to intervene in adolescents’ lives in time, space, and precise risk behavior; and that implementing smoke-free school hours would interfere with maintaining positive student-staff relationships. One secondary belief identified was that smoke-free school hours would be impossible to enforce consistently. Conclusion: This paper was the first to demonstrate the many beliefs explaining why schools refrain from voluntary implementing far-reaching smoke-free policies

Dutch youth’s smoking behaviour during a partial covid-19 lockdown

Previous research found that adult smokers increased their smoking in response to the Covid-19 lockdown in spring 2020. This study explored changes in youth’s smoking during, compared to before, the partial lockdown in the Netherlands in a cross-sectional sample of 287 adolescents. Smoking prevalence increased from 4.5% to 5.2%. Cigarette consumption remained the same on school days and increased with +1.9 cigarettes per weekend day. The largest increase in cigarette consumption on weekend days was observed for adolescents who 1) did not consider smoking a risk factor for contracting Covid-19 (+4.5), 2) had smoking siblings (+4.1), and 3) had smoking friends (+2.4). Youth without smoking friends (-0.8) and who considered smoking a risk factor for Covid-19 (-0.2) decreased their cigarette consumption

Informal Interpreting in General Practice: Comparing the perspectives of General Practitioners, migrant patients and family interpreters.

Objective To explore differences in perspectives of general practitioners, Turkish-Dutch migrant patients and family interpreters on interpreters’ role, power dynamics and trust in interpreted GP consultations. Methods 54 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with the three parties focusing on interpreter’s role, power and trust in interpreters. Results In line with family interpreters’ perspective, patients expected the interpreters to advocate on their behalf and felt empowered when they did so. GPs, on the contrary, felt annoyed and disempowered when the family interpreters performed the advocacy role. Family interpreters were trusted by patients for their fidelity, that is, patients assumed that family interpreters would act in their best interest. GPs, on the contrary, mistrusted family interpreters when they perceived dishonesty or a lack of competence. Conclusion Opposing views were found between GPs on the one hand and family interpreters and patients on the other hand on interpreter’s role, power dynamics and the different dimensions of trust. These opposing perspectives might lead to miscommunication and conflicts between the three interlocutors. Practice implications GPs should be educated to become aware of the difficulties of family interpreting, such as conflicting role expectations, and be trained to be able to call on professional interpreters when needed