Assimilation And Conjoint Uses Of Mobile Health And Quick Response Code Technology To Prevent The Tobacco Uses

Among the 1.1 billion global smokers about 80% of them live in emerging countries,which includes China and Pakistan.China produces and consumes nearly one-third of global tobacco,which can kill nearly two million-plus people by 2030 in China.Similarly,it is shown that about 19% of Pakistan people consumed over 70 billion cigarettes in 2018 alone,and tobacco-control has remained hard due to ineffective measures and poor policies in the country.Largely applied programs can aid experts and smokers to relapse tobacco uses in emerging nations.Thus,the World Health Organization(WHO)recommends the adopttion of MPOWER stratagems on tobacco control,which aims to monitor smokers' tobacco uses;protect them from smoking;offer them the help they needed to quit;warn them against smoking;enforce prohibitions on tobacco ads,and raise taxes on tobacco products.Also,the WHO has led the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control(FCTC),which includes guidelines for tobacco retailers to print health-related warnings(e.g.texts and graphics)on cigarettes packs,which discourages smoking.China and Pakistan are signatories of these two WHO programs.It has been shown that China complies with the WHO MPOWER stratagems via adopting ample solutions,such as mobile health(m Health)for cessation,yet,China needs to comply with the FCTC guidelines and print health-related graphics on cigarette packs,which can help in preventing over 12.8 million deaths and save nearly 154 million lives by 2050 in the country.While,Pakistan complies with the FCTC guidelines yet requires effective measures in compliance with the MPOWER stratagems.This study aims to explore the ability,adaptability and acceptance of m Health and quick response code(QRC)technology to aid both China and Pakistan smokers and experts,as technology compliance,under the WHO MPOWER and FCTC programs on tobacco control.The assimilation and conjoint uses of m Health and QRC technology can help in improving smokers' health beliefs towards cessation,both efficiently and cost-effectively.Printing the customized QR codes(embedded with anti-smoking texts,graphics and videos that display tobacco risks,and contact details of experts for smokers to have a free and readily-available cessation counselling)on cigarette packs,and espousal of a user-defined m Health App that scans to those codes,fetches and displays the embedded content on the mobile screens of smokers at the times when they are susceptible to or craving for smoking,can improve smokers' health beliefs towards cessation.This adoption of m Health and QRC technology complies with the WHO MPOWER and FCTC programs on tobacco control.The current literature on this research supports the ability and adaptability of m Health and QRC technology,however,this study empirically examines the acceptance of both these two tools to aid smoker cessation.This study includes the English-speaking students as a convenient sample of participants,university seminars were arranged to recruit and guide the study participants on how and when to use the programmed m Health App and QR codes for cessation.Chpaters 3,4,and 5 inlude the experimental details for each trial in this study.The first trial was designed using the technology acceptance model(TAM)theory constructs,which examined the perceived ease of use(PEOU)and perceived usefulness(PU)attributes of a user-defined m Health App to improve participants'(Pakistan smokers)intention to use(ITU)and their actual use(AU)of the programmed App for cessation.The second trial uses the health belief model(HBM)theory constructs(e.g.self-efficacy,cuesto-action,perceived threat,perceived barriers,perceived benefits and quit smoking),which aims to examine the conjoint uses of m Health and QRC technology,as effective cues-toaction,to improve self-efficacy of participants(China smokers)that they can comprehend tobacco risks,overcome their perceived barriers related to cessation and attain the potential benefits of quitting.This trial includes pre and post-intervention responses of participants regarding their changes in health beliefs and cigarette smoking due to their conjoint uses of m Health and QRC technology.The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to explore pre and post-intervention responses.Also,the probability estimation model was designed using the post-intervention data,which estimated participants' likelihood to cut/quit smoking due to their changes in health beliefs.The third trial was designed the same TAM constructs,however,it aimed to examine the conjoint PEOU and PU attributes of m Health and QRC technology,and participants'(both China and Pakistan smokers)ITU and AU of these two tools for cessation.This trial also validated the findings of the first two trials of this study.The cross-cultural differences between China and Pakistan participants were examined in this trial using one-way analyses of variance(ANOVA)under the Welch test assumptions.Structural equation modelling was used as a common statistical method in all three trials to examine the structural relationships of study constructs.The obtained findings of the TAM based trials indicated that both m Health and QRC technology have been shown useful tools,which assisted China and Pakistan smokers in cessation.The findings of the HBM based trial indicate that the conjoint uses of m Health and QRC technology helped smokers to comprehend the tobacco risks and assisted them to overcome perceived barriers and attain the potential benefits,related to cessation.Besides,this research has been shown viable for experts to comprehend,amend and predict a complex behaviour of cigarette smoking in smokers.Hence,it can assist China and Pakistan,as technology compliance,per the WHO MPOWER and FCTC programs on tobacco control.