Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) is releasing materials presented to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in a scientific briefing requested by the MPAA last February 23, 2007 in Hollywood on the health impact of youth smoking and the behavioral influence of films that depict tobacco use.
The presentations can be accessed at www.hsph.harvard.edu/mpaa/.
From the perspective of public health, tobacco use is the largest preventable cause of death in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 438,000 people in the U.S. and 5 million worldwide die prematurely each year from tobacco-related disease.
The presentations lay the foundation for the recommendation of Dean Barry R. Bloom of the Harvard School of Public Health that the MPAA take substantive and effective action to eliminate the depiction of tobacco smoking from films accessible to children and youths.
HSPH has long been active in pressing for control of tobacco and smoking. In 1981, Professor Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the School's Department of Epidemiology first described the health effects of secondhand smoke, linking it to increased lung cancer risk in people who had never smoked themselves.