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Gabriel Torres

Professor P. Mirchandani

ENC 1101

March 17, 2024

Design Plan: The Impact of Vaping in Panamanian Teenagers (13-19 Years Old)

The purpose of this advocacy project is to raise awareness about the still-growing issue

of teenage vaping in Panama and its complications for public health and well-being. With this,

different people can better understand the scope of the problem and work towards implementing

effective prevention and intervention strategies to safeguard the health and future of Panama’s

youth.

To give more context, “Vaping”, is the act of inhaling and exhaling vapor with nicotine

and flavoring produced by a device called an “e-cigarette” or “vape”. It has gained popularity

among teens in Panama; it can be driven by peer influence, social media marketing, or a trend or

mode that the youth might want to follow. It also gained more popularity because of the wrong

perception that vaping is less harmful than traditional smoking with cigarettes. Equally

important, Panama has taken steps to regulate vaping products, including restrictions on sales to

minors and advertising aimed at young people. However, enforcement of these restrictions could

vary, and the availability of vaping products remains widespread. Moreover, health authorities in

Panama have raised concerns about the potential health risks of vaping, especially for young

people. Some of the concerns include nicotine addiction, lung damage, and exposure to harmful

chemicals in vaping products.

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There have been efforts to educate teenagers and parents about the risks of vaping and

how essential it is to combat its popularity among youth. Some actions that have been used are

different school-based programs and public health campaigns to defend this cause.

My main goal with this project is to protect the health, safety, and well-being of

Panamanian adolescents by creating an environment that discourages smoking and encourages

positive behaviors.

The audience that I am pursuing in this advocacy project is divided into two, the receivers

and the helpers. The receivers consist basically of youth, teenagers, and young adults. They need

to be aware of the problems and different diseases that vaping can cause in their own lives; they

also need to know what is happening around them and be clear about what vaping can do to

them. If they already consume e-cigarettes, provide different help and sources for them to get out

of that world that can ruin not only their health, but their future. The helpers are the ones who

can do a good job at supporting and helping the youth, people who can make an impact like

parents, educators, and educational institutions such as schools and universities. It does not

consist of a one-sided job. By dividing my audience in two, I mean them to collaborate together.

For example, if a parent finds out their kid is smoking e-cigarettes, instead of just freaking out

and getting mad at them, they could offer their kid help to quit that practice and to make them

aware of what vaping can do to them.

To achieve the goal of my advocacy project, I want to educate teenagers about all the

harm that vaping can cause them and promote healthier lifestyle choices. With this, I mean to

increase access to education and resources about the risks of vaping and to also educate parents

and educators about vaping and what they can do to give help to adolescents who already smoke

e-cigarettes or to prevent and create awareness about vaping among Panamanian youth.
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Some things that can be done and used for my project are: education and awareness

campaigns to target and educate my audience about the risks of vaping and the things it can

cause; youth engagement by empowering young people to become advocates for their own

health by providing them opportunities for them to participate in advocacy efforts, share their

own experiences, and develop peer-led prevention initiatives; access to resources, making sure

that the youth has access to resources, and giving help for them to quit smoking e-cigarettes if

they already are doing it. Researching for a better understanding of the factors contributing to

teenage vaping in Panama.

By establishing credibility through experience and proving the trustworthiness of my

sources, my audience will be more likely to trust the information and arguments in my project. I

will be modifying my research proposal to connect it more cohesively to my advocacy project, to

have more credible sources.

I must appeal to the emotions of my audience, for example, parents’ concerns about their

children’s health as well as teenagers’ concerns about their own health, to evoke empathy and

motivate action. I’ll include interviews with peers for them to give a different point of view

about the topic and experiences from other people so they can understand the emotions and tone

behind my project.

I will be presenting logical arguments based on facts and evidence to persuade my

audience through reason, rationality and to understand and connect with my them to make an

impactful change after they read and go through my webpage.

By pursuing these strategies in a coordinated and collaborative manner, I can create

advocacy efforts against teenage vaping to effectively engage and persuade them and their

helpers to take action to address this pressing public health issue among Panamanian youth.
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My advocacy project is going to be done on a webpage made by me, and it will have

multiple pages for my audience to have a detailed explanation of my project. It will be divided

into six pages: The Problematic Epidemic of Vaping, The Effects, What Can You Do to Stop?,

Testimonies, a page about the author, and a Works Cited page. By including these pages, I can

make sure my audience has all the knowledge and information I can offer them so they can

understand the topic and have the capacity to start and make an action or to start a change for the

better in case of the helpers; for the receivers, I want to make an impact and a mindset to have a

good lifestyle and to show them in a very clear way what vaping can do to them and how they

can help themselves or others to quit vaping or to give help in the smartest and most thoughtful

ways possible.

The first page, The Problematic Epidemic of Vaping, will contain who is part of this

problem, why it is happening, when it happens, where it happens, and how often it happens. The

second page, The Effects, will talk about how vaping can physiologically and psychologically

affect youth, the costs of it, and the different diseases that it can cause, from mild to extreme.

The third page, What Can You Do to Stop?, will include different tips and information for

teenagers to stop smoking e-cigarettes or helpers to get information about how they can help the

youth. The fourth page, Testimonies, will have different videos and external YouTube videos

about different adolescents sharing their experiences about vaping.

I will be including a lot of photos, videos, and external links to YouTube videos to make

my website more visual and easier to understand. I will also be using a color palette and

typography that can make my audience feel engaged with my topic.

With all these strategies, analyses, and the design of my webpage, I want to be able to

move people and convince them to be a helper or a receiver to make a difference once and for all
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in Panama. I propose to myself to create this advocacy project and achieve the various goals that

I talked about, so there is a really important change and message for people to seek with my

advocacy project.