Exploring at stakeholders' perceptions on the implementation of comprehensive no smoking city ordinance basis for remediation program / [manuscript] :
Michelle Castillo - De Castro.
- Balanga City : BPSU, 2015.
- 118 leaves ; 28 cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
The main thrust of the study is to gain an insightful understanding of No Smoking City Ordinance of a specific city, in this case, the city of Balanga during the Fiscal Year 2015. The respondents were the smokers, healthcare providers and enforcers. Specifically, the study described the implementation of the Comprehensive No Smoking City Ordinance. The administrator related factors comprised the mechanism and information dissemination. As for the technical implementation of the Comprehensive No Smoking City Ordinance, it included the smoker's management as well as environmental and area management. It also included the training and counseling facilities in the implementation of the Comprehensive No Smoking City Ordinance. The data collected through three validated self-made questionnaire were tallied, tabulated and distributed in accordance with the variables stated in the problems. The data gathered were analyzed with the use of frequency count and percentage to describe the health awareness and coping mechanism of the smokers. The mean was used to describe the extent of implementation of the Comprehensive No Smoking City Ordinance in Balanga. Moreover, to determine the significant difference between administration, technical and facilities, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed. However, the assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance were not met. Hence, the nonparametric version of ANOVA called the Kruskal Wallis Test was used. vii This test ranks all the observed scores. If differences among the group exist, then the scores from the various samples will be systematically clustered in the entire rank order. The null hypothesis states that there are no differences among the groups, and therefore the scores will not cluster systematically. From the findings, it was concluded that the lone null hypothesis that there is no any significant difference in the perceptions of the healthcare providers and enforcers on the extent of implementation of Comprehensive No Smoking City Ordinance is partially upheld. Further, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 18 for Windows) program was used to facilitate the processing and interpretation of data. SPSS readily provides the significance of probability levels for the statistical tests; hence these are just compared with 0.05 level which was set in study as the accepted level of significance. If the significant values are equal or lower than 0.05 level; then the statistical values are significant. In view of the foregoing, the following specific recommendations are offered: the first series of recommendations focuses on the designated smoking area; there is a need to comply with the City Ordinance's requirement for a designated smoking area in each public building in the City. It is also recommended that the designated smoking area be far from where the public pass and to make certain that "Smoking Area" signage is highly visible and prominently displayed at the designated smoking area. viii Secondly, it is strongly recommended to ensure that the staffs of the City Public Safety Office are well-coordinated with the staff of the City Health Office to ensure that proper smoking cessation counseling is done to the smokers who are caught by the enforcers. It is also strongly recommended that the implementers of the said ordinance themselves be non-smokers so that the community will respond to their instruction with respect and dignity. Likewise, other researchers should put into consideration conducting a study that deals with the perception of the caught smokers with regards to the discharge duties of the healthcare providers and enforcers in the implementation of the Comprehensive No Smoking City Ordinance.