World No Tobacco Day 2026: Role Of Nurses, Parul College of Nursing Students' Skit on Public Health Education.

The journey of using and quitting doesn't come through policy or a poster but through a person, often a nurse. The role of nurses in tobacco control is the most valuable one, which goes unnoticed and underappreciated in public health. Their job is to counsel and advise patients who are trying to quit tobacco, find early signs, and spread awareness in the communities because alone campaigns cannot reach. On 25 June 2026, Parul College of Nursing at Parul University, Goa, took the initiative of spreading awareness on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day; through this, students of nursing experienced how the process of public health awareness works.

The skit competition, titled “Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction,” was organised by the District Tobacco Control Cell of South Goa and held in the open area outside the Outpatient Department of the South Goa District Hospital in Margao. The place of performing the skit was deliberate; it was a setting where patients, attendants, hospital staff, and visitors come. It came out as a live public health education for a real audience. The programme was inaugurated by Dr. Sarah George, District Nodal Officer for the National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP-South), who spoke on the health consequences of tobacco and urged the nursing students to become health educators and advocates for cessation in their communities.

Six teams from various nursing institutions took part. Parul College of Nursing sent four teams to the event, two from first-year B.Sc Nursing and two from GNM Nursing, with 37 students taking part under faculty coordinator Ms. Sanjana Talekar. Through role play, emotional storytelling, and informative dialogue, each team brought out how tobacco affects individuals, families, and society. The B.Sc Nursing team went on to win Second Prize, and were felicitated by Dr. Rajendra M. Borkar, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, along with Dr. Sarah George.

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Nurses are the health workers patients see most, and often trust most. That makes them the natural front line of cessation.
The reason this activity is more than a college event is that it reflects a genuine clinical reality. Nurses are the most numerous health workforce and the ones patients encounter most often, which places them in an ideal position to influence tobacco use. Their role in tobacco control runs across several fronts:

• Brief cessation advice: even short, structured conversations from a nurse measurably improve a patient’s odds of quitting.
• Screening and early detection: identifying tobacco-related warning signs, such as oral lesions or respiratory symptoms, early enough to matter.
• Community health education: carrying prevention messages into schools, workplaces, and public settings, exactly as the students did outside the OPD.
• Support through withdrawal: guiding patients through the physical and psychological difficulty of nicotine dependence.

Nurses are the health workers patients see most, and often trust most. That makes them the natural front line of cessation.

The reason this activity is more than a college event is that it reflects a genuine clinical reality. Nurses are the most numerous health workforce and the ones patients encounter most often, which places them in an ideal position to influence tobacco use. Their role in tobacco control runs across several fronts:

• Cancer: most of the tobacco consumers are in oral form; the consumption leads to oral cancer and lung cancer, strongly linked in India to smokeless tobacco such as gutka, khaini, and zarda.
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): Slow, Progressive, treatable but irreversible lung damage.
• Cardiovascular disease: many heart diseases and strokes are also due to tobacco consumption.
• Nicotine addiction: Any type of dependency, such as social, physical, and psychological, making the quitting process hard.

A positive message was given by students that is supported by evidence that quitting tobacco at any stage leads to a visible health improvement. That combination, honest about the harm and clear about the way out, is exactly how effective cessation counselling works.

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World No Tobacco Day is observed globally on 31 May each year, coordinated by the World Health Organization to raise awareness of tobacco’s harms and press for stronger control. The WHO theme for 2026 is “Unmasking the Appeal: Countering Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction,” which focuses on how the tobacco and nicotine industry reinvents its products, e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, flavoured and synthetic-nicotine devices, to attract young people. The skit competition’s own title, “Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction,” aligned directly with that year’s global focus, placing a small Goa hospital event within a worldwide public health conversation.

The event did not happen in isolation; it was run by a district cell of a national system.

India’s National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP), run by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, operates through state and district Tobacco Control Cells to deliver enforcement, cessation services, and public awareness on the ground. The District Tobacco Control Cell of South Goa, which organised this competition, is one such unit, and the involvement of its District Nodal Officer is what connected the students’ work to the wider legal and policy framework, including the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act. For nursing students, taking part alongside the district health machinery is a direct lesson in how community health actually operates.

One of the agendas and related to their field give them more insights into how the health community works. This learning is beyond textbooks. The Parul College of Nursing students of Parul University of Goa learned that by standing in front of a community and communicating a health message clearly enough to change behaviour, it is not a subject that a textbook can teach. Connecting with the District Tobacco Control Cell helped students gain exposure to public health practice, widening their knowledge and strengthening their communication, leadership, and teamwork. They reinforced their identity as future health educators, not only clinical caregivers. It is the kind of experiential learning that a nursing education at Parul University Goa is built to provide.