Armenian doctor Satenik Muradyan explains why education is key to tobacco harm reduction, revealing that over 80% of physicians in Armenia lack smoking-cessation training, how misconceptions about tar vs. nicotine fuel resistance, divided youth attitudes toward safer nicotine products, and why step-by-step, evidence-based communication works - insights shared at GFN on overcoming deeply rooted misinformation.
Transcription:
00:10 - 00:21
[Joanna Junak]
You are a medical doctor and the leader in scientific education in Armenia. So what inspired you to work in harm reduction?
00:21 - 00:58
[Satenik Muradyan]
So especially tobacco harm reduction, my inspiration was the fact that almost half of the male population in Armenia is smoking. So that's a huge problem. And when looking into what methods are people using to try to solve that problem. Obviously in Armenia whatever they're using it wasn't working because still half of the male population was smoking and after I looked into alternatives of what can be done I learned about tobacco harm reduction and then life gave me the opportunity of the scholarship and I ended up here.
00:59 - 01:08
[Joanna Junak]
Okay, so what message did you share with the participants during your presentation at this year's GFN conference?
01:09 - 02:10
[Satenik Muradyan]
So, some of the points were, first of all, that Armenian healthcare, me being a doctor, I really focus on healthcare system as well, that I did a research last year which showed that over 80% of Armenian doctors have never received any training on how to fight smoking. And the focus to me is that education is key. I feel like you cannot fight something that you don't know about. So if we don't know what causes, what... substances in cigarettes cause issues. How do we fight them? And the misconception about different methods and the misconception about what's contained in cigarettes is so, so broad in Armenia that it's clearly evident that the lack of knowledge is one of the main points which is leading to such percentages of smokers there.
02:11 - 02:17
[Joanna Junak]
So, as you mentioned, education is most important in THI. Why?
02:18 - 03:31
[Satenik Muradyan]
Going back to the same sentence, you cannot fight something that you don't know how to fight it. I feel like most of the misconception about THR comes from the fact that people don't know what it is. For example, before studying THR, I also had the view that all alternative nicotine products are much worse than cigarettes. Then I started to learn about different aspects of each product. And I'm like, OK, wait, tar is the thing that's killing people. Nicotine isn't. So this makes sense. So just reading and reading independently, reading independent journals, reading high quality researches, is what convinced me that tobacco harm reduction actually works. And adding the fact that, for example, Sweden is winning in those terms, like 40% less cancer rates, Japan, UK, etc. Reading, reading and reading has easily convinced me, so why wouldn't it convince others? Especially doctors, because doctors should be people driven by evidence-based knowledge.
03:31 - 03:41
[Joanna Junak]
How do young people in Armenia feel about safer nicotine products?
03:41 - 04:24
[Satenik Muradyan]
It is very divided. So around maybe two or three years ago there was this wave of these products being very modern, very stylish. But then some time passed and a lot of people started to go back to combustible cigarettes and a lot of them stating that, oh, because in these products are some chemicals that we don't know what they are, so we better go back to stuff that we know. But every now and then you, of course, can see young people using the alternative products, but the views are very divided and I would not be able to state that, oh, they're pro, they don't like it.
04:24 - 04:40
[Joanna Junak]
So it's very, very divided. This year's trapline is challenging perception, effective communications for tobacco harm reduction. So what are the biggest barriers to communicating about THR in Armenia?
04:41 - 05:44
[Satenik Muradyan]
To me, the biggest barrier is the already very rooted misinformation. Whenever I try to have a short conversation about THR and try to explain how alternative products are less harmful than cigarettes, I immediately have this backlash of, no, they are much worse. But once I go step by... I'm organizing trainings in Armenia about the methods of fighting against smoking. And once I'm going step by step about different methods, about all the details, that's the way that I'm seeing works for people. And they're like, okay, maybe there's something right about this. But once you just mention that THR works, The first reaction that you receive is, no, it doesn't. It's much worse. So it's very, very rooted. And that lack of knowledge and evidence of misinformation is the biggest barrier for me that I'm trying to overcome with my team.