According to the American Cancer Society, tobacco use and obesity have been conclusively linked to over 18 different cancers combined, including lung, breast and colorectal cancers. Approximately one-half of the 98,200 cancer deaths expected in Texas are attributed to tobacco, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, overweight, and obesity. Sixty-four percent and 20 percent of the state’s population is overweight/obese or tobacco users, respectively.

Nearly 289,000 strong, nurses are the largest healthcare workforce in Texas, continuing to be the public’s trusted source of healthcare information and health promotion; yet nurses have similar rates of obesity and tobacco use as the general pub...

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According to the American Cancer Society, tobacco use and obesity have been conclusively linked to over 18 different cancers combined, including lung, breast and colorectal cancers. Approximately one-half of the 98,200 cancer deaths expected in Texas are attributed to tobacco, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, overweight, and obesity. Sixty-four percent and 20 percent of the state’s population is overweight/obese or tobacco users, respectively.

Nearly 289,000 strong, nurses are the largest healthcare workforce in Texas, continuing to be the public’s trusted source of healthcare information and health promotion; yet nurses have similar rates of obesity and tobacco use as the general public. Nurses who are overweight, obese, or use tobacco rate their ability to provide health promotion education and positively role-model health promotion lower than their healthier colleagues; patients agree. Nurses who have changed their physical activity, nutrition, or tobacco use habits are viewed as stronger health promotion advocates and role-models, leading to increased behavior changes in patients.

In order to effectively change their own cancer prevention health behaviors as well as role-model those behaviors to the Texans they serve every day, which include numerous priority populations, nurses must receive more primary cancer prevention and health promotion professional education, specifically on evidence-based tobacco cessation, nutrition, and physical activity guidelines.

The Nurse Oncology Education Program (NOEP) educates nurses in all fields of practice on the latest, evidence based cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and survivorship. NOEP will provide integrated face-to-face, online and mobile education to Texas nurses in all fields of practice, with a specific focus on nurses working in primary care, on evidence-based tobacco cessation, nutrition, physical activity guidelines, implementing those health behaviors, and role-modeling those behaviors to patients and colleagues. NOEP hopes to impact the health of a vital workforce as well as the diverse patients those nurses serve every day.

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