The scope of the tobacco industry's corrective statements is even lower among some groups with higher smoking rates – ScienceDaily



[ad_1]

Anti-smoking advertisements ordered by the tobacco industry's courts have reached only 40.6% of US adults and 50.5% of current smokers in 2018, according to a new MD Anderson Cancer Center study of 39, University of Texas. Advertising exposure was even lower among some ethnic and socio-economic subgroups traditionally targeted by the tobacco industry's marketing.

The results, published today in JAMA Network open now, should be taken into account when planning future anti-smoking advertising for youth and at-risk populations, said Sanjay Shete, senior author, Ph.D., professor of biostatistics and epidemiology and deputy chief of cancer prevention and population science.

"Compared to other nationally funded anti-tobacco campaigns, the reach and penetration of these industry-sponsored ads were suboptimal," said Shete. "Our hope, as researchers in cancer prevention, is that more people see these ads and avoid smoking or plan to quit." Based on our findings, future efforts in this space need to be more focused. to reach key populations. "

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, killing approximately 480,000 people each year. Smoking is also the leading preventable cause of cancer, responsible for about 30% of all cancers and 90% of all lung cancers.

The corrective judgments were mandated in a 2006 Judgment by US District Judge Gladys Kessler and began appearing on prime time television and in 50 major US newspapers in November 2017. MD Anderson praised commercials as an important step in informing Americans of the harms of smoking.

This study evaluated data from the National Health Information Survey conducted in 2018, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of US adults sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. The study badyzed responses from 3,484 adults, including 450 current smokers, collected between January and May 2018 on self-reported exposure to tobacco-free ads.

Exposure was lowest among adults aged 18 to 34 (37.4%), those with lower or higher education (34.5%) and those with household incomes below 35%. $ 000 (37.5%). Among current smokers, exposure was the lowest in the Hispanic population, with only 42.2%.

"Historically, some ethnic groups and those with low socio-economic status have been targeted by tobacco industry marketing, which has resulted in high rates of smoking and tobacco-related illness in these populations." said the first author, Onyema Greg Chido-Amajuoyi, MBBS, Postdoctoral Fellow in Epidemiology. "These risk groups would ideally have been the most exposed to these ads, but on the contrary, they had the least."

The researchers found that the rates of exposure increased with the duration of the campaign: 41.3% in February 2018 and 46.8% in May 2018. This highlights the need for sustained publicity to evaluate the Long-term impact on public health, explained Shete. .

The authors recognize some limitations of the study inherent in the use of such a survey. Responses were self-reported and therefore prone to recall and some biases. In addition, since the survey is cross-sectional, it is impossible to establish a causal link between exposure and cessation attempts. Finally, there was no distinction between television exposure and print advertising, which could have led to a better understanding.

The co-authors with Shete and Chido-Amajuoyi are Robert K. Yu, of Biostatistics; and Israel Agaku, MD, Ph.D., of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA. The authors do not report any conflict of interest.

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute (P30CA016672), Professor Barnhart Family Distinguished in Targeted Therapy, the Texas Institute for Cancer Prevention Research (RP170259), the Cancer Research Fund, Mrs. Harry C. Wiess, and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

[ad_2]
Source link