Today we sit down with Marceline Akinyi to discuss the complex landscape of nicotine education and public health in Kenya. As the country faces a wave of product bans, Marceline highlights a dangerous gap between academic research and public understanding.
Transcription:
00:04 - 00:17
[Host]
New episode, Fresh Perspective. This is GFN Insights on GFN.tv. Today we're interviewing Marceline Akinyi, who is exploring the critical intersection of nicotine education and public health in Kenya.
00:17 - 00:23
[Zuzanna Kopacz]
So Marceline, what inspired you to explore the topic of nicotine and harm reduction in Kenya?
00:23 - 01:05
[Marcelline Akinyi]
So currently in Kenya there's a lot of bans about safe nicotine products and also with the bans there's a lot of illicit vapes around, a lot of illicit shisha, So a lot of the general public is not aware of what products can be used that are safe and the effects that nicotine has on them. There's no audio-visual documentation of this. Most of the research and work only exists as research papers. or very in-depth news articles and unfortunately if you're trying to drive impact from the general public you need to reach them where you can get them and that's why I wanted to create an audio-visual production that can connect directly to the public in terms of education and information.
01:07 - 01:12
[Zuzanna Kopacz]
And what have you found out about how people understand nicotine and its risk in your project?
01:13 - 01:54
[Marcelline Akinyi]
So far what I understand is a lot of people tolerate nicotine to cancer, so they just assume that nicotine is the cause of cancer because of that huge misinformation that links nicotine to cancer as opposed to tar. And the problem with that narrative is it doesn't encourage the public to think about different products that they can use that can hopefully reduce the harm that they have in terms of their addiction if they cannot quit. So when you already tolerate nicotine to cancer or everyone is going to be afraid of anything nicotine and it's going to assume that the level of risk is the same across the board, which is very terrible for public health.
01:56 - 02:01
[Zuzanna Kopacz]
And what alternatives to cigarettes are people in Kenya aware of and how do they perceive it?
02:01 - 02:54
[Marcelline Akinyi]
So currently in Kenya we are having quite a difficult situation because there's so many bans that were affected recently and people for example are not even aware of most like alternatives and the things that people are aware of either they don't have nicotine like like e-cigarettes or vapes they just assume it's just a fun party party device or shisha that they're not aware that these are substances that have nicotine So there's a lot of lack of information amongst the general public to an extent that is very troublesome when you think about the amount of tobacco consumption in the country. That, with also the kind of policies we are having right now, there's a lot of difficulty in that area, and that's why there's a need for a little bit more information that targets the public in terms of what is already there. Thank you, Marceline.