Anti-tobacco advertising reduces smoking

According to a recently released study, young people were found to reduce their cigarette smoking and had a more positive attitude to anti-smoking after they were exposed to state-sponsored anti-tobacco advertising.

Ever since the early 1990s, the U.S. population has been bombarded by an increasing number and variety of televised anti-tobacco advertisements, but despite early evidence suggesting that state-sponsored anti-tobacco media campaigns may reduce adult smoking, few studies have explored their effect on youth.

Due to state budget crises and other political influences, many states have severely cut their anti-tobacco campaigns.

In this new study Sherry Emery, Ph.D., from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and her colleagues, examined the association between exposure to state anti-tobacco advertising and youth smoking-related beliefs and behaviors.

The researchers used targeted ratings point (TRPs) to assess the ratings of an advertisement among U.S. teen audiences.

An advertisement with 80 TRPs per month was estimated to have been seen an average of once by 80 percent of this age group.

This information was then combined with survey data from school-based samples of 51,085 students in the contiguous 48 states.

Apparently the researchers found that among survey respondents, 14 percent had an average of zero exposures to state-sponsored advertisements in the last four months, 65 percent of the students had an average exposure greater than zero, but less than one, and 21 percent had an average exposure of one or more state-sponsored anti-tobacco advertisements.

Students in states with a TRP measure of one or higher were significantly less likely to report having smoked in the past 30 days (18.6 percent) compared with those in markets with no exposure to anti-tobacco advertisements (26.7 percent).

Those with one or more state TRPs were more likely to perceive great harm from smoking one or more packs of cigarettes per day (72.1 percent vs. 65.1 percent).

Also, students living in areas with an average exposure of at least one state-sponsored anti-tobacco advertisement were more likely to say that they believed they would definitely not be smoking in five years (64 percent vs. 55.3 percent).

The team say their analyses suggest that state-sponsored anti-tobacco media campaigns were associated with more favorable anti smoking attitudes and beliefs among youth and reduced youth smoking.

The authors say that the strong associations between anti smoking attitudes and beliefs, as well as reduced smoking, among students with a state TRP measure of at least one, suggests that it is important to maintain a minimal mean exposure level of at least one cumulative state-sponsored anti-tobacco ad per four-month period for the general teen viewing audience.

David E. Nelson, M.D., M.P.H., from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, says that despite tremendous strides in reducing youth tobacco use, and substantial research demonstrating that counter advertising and other components of comprehensive programs are effective in reducing prevalence, as well as being cost-effective, it is obvious that tobacco prevention activities are not institutionalized and that state program expenditures in this area are viewed by many as discretionary.

He says given the magnitude of the tobacco problem, and the fact that most regular smokers begin by age 18 years, preventing tobacco use among children and adolescents is one of the most important pediatric successes imaginable.

He adds that pediatricians and other health care providers, either individually or collectively through professional or other organizations, need to actively support sustaining state comprehensive tobacco control and prevention activities that include counter advertising.

He says failing to do so could mean losing the hard-won gains achieved in tobacco prevention over the past several years, and unfortunately, that would be deadly for many people.

The study is published in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.