If you are a role model, then your smoking is likely to influence the smoking behaviour of other people around you. If you smoke, then it is more likely that others in your home may also smoke, especially young people influenced by parents and siblings.

Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals are role models for their patients and if they smoke, they send an inconsistent message to their patients. Health professionals should therefore be encouraged and supported to stop using tobacco and to promote a tobacco-free culture.