Youth Prevention

Research

High-sensation seeking youth drawn to sweet-tasting cigarettes, study finds
According to research published in Tobacco Control, high sensation-seeking youth are more susceptible to smoking fruit and candy flavored cigarettes than their counterparts. High school students were asked to evaluate three cigarette packages, with one group examining traditional packages and another group examining the packages of cherry flavored cigarettes. The students then responded to questions about the appeal of the brand, as well as questions designed to assess thrill-seeking tendencies. The results indicate that the brand appeal depended on both the sensation-seeking tendency of the student and the flavor description on the packaging; particularly, students classified as high-sensation seekers found the flavor descriptive packages more appealing than the traditional packages. The results of this study lend support to the recent FDA ban on flavored cigarettes. Click here to read more about the study, or here to read the abstract.

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Reports

‘Avatar’ joins holiday movies that fail an antismoking test
The Smoke Free Movies Initiative and the American Legacy Foundation have launched a new ad campaign, estimating that the film “Avatar” will deliver forty million tobacco impressions for every $100 million made. The campaign is a response to scenes in the film that depict Sigourney Weaver’s character smoking, which those who oppose smoking in movies see as a pro-tobacco message that can influence youth to smoke. Read more here. Click here to read about the advertising campaign to raise awareness about the negative impact of the depictions of smoking in this movie, or visit the University of California San Francisco Smokefree Movies campaign website.

2010 Kick Butts Day website open for business
Mark your calendar for the next Kick Butts Day (KBD), March 24, 2010! The 2010 Kick Butts Day website is now live, providing a free activity guide with information about events, promotional materials, resources, and other tools to get involved. KBD is an annual day of activism that empowers youth to take action against tobacco use at more than 2,000 events from coast to coast. Register your KBD event on the website so that the KBD team can help your event earn media attention. Click here to visit the KBD website, or click here to download your free activity guide.

N.Y. tobacco retailers mostly compliant with minors law (NY)
A report issued by the New York State Department of Health finds that state retailers were 91.7% compliant with laws forbidding tobacco sales to minors. Over 38,000 compliance checks made from October 2007 to September 2008 were analyzed, indicating that over $1.9 million in fines were issued to 2,424 noncompliant retailers. Compliance was slightly down from the previous year’s rate of 92.4%, where $1.6 million was collected from 2,120 retailers. The state fines first time offenders a minimum of $300; repeat offenders must pay at least $500 and have their tobacco or lottery license suspended. Click here to read more.

Good sign: Youth smoking rates decline (OK)
The biannual 2009 Oklahoma Youth Tobacco Survey shows that the number of high school and middle school students that are current cigarette smokers is declining, encouraging news for a state that has otherwise had consistently low health rankings. Current cigarette smoking is down 3.2% among high school students and 1.0% among middle school students, while the number of youth who consider themselves “committed non-smokers” is rising. Oklahoma health officials believe that a campaign against youth tobacco use, state policies, and other prevention strategies are the reasons for the decline in youth cigarette use. Click here for the full story.

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International

WHO: Tobacco a global pediatric concern
The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a bulletin about the global consequences of tobacco for children. The bulletin discusses the direct impact on children, such as tobacco marketing towards youth and the health consequences of tobacco use, as well as more indirect issues such as child labor on tobacco farms, malnutrition due to family resources being used to purchase tobacco instead of food, and injury or death from fire caused by cigarettes. The bulletin advocates for increased resources and priority for tobacco control related to children. Click here to read the WHO bulletin, which was written by members of the American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium.

Government of Canada announces project that engages youth in tobacco control initiatives (Canada)
The Canadian government has announced that it will spend $230,000 to fund the “Youth Action Committee and Young Adult Advisory Committee,” a project designed to include youth in tobacco use reduction initiatives. The Committees will provide advice and feedback to Health Canada on policies and programs aimed at youth tobacco control, encouraging youth to become active citizens and ensuring the programs created are appropriate and effective for that audience. Click here to read a press release distributed on behalf of the Canadian Minister of Health.

Company posts pro-tobacco messages in Sichuan school (China)
The China Tobacco Company has begun marketing tobacco at a primary school it funds in Sichuan province, posting banners with messages such as “Work hard for society! Tobacco can help you become an achiever!” on the school’s campus. The company started funding the Sichuan Tobacco Project Hope Primary School after a massive earthquake hit the province in 2008, and Project Hope has created 69 other tobacco company sponsored schools throughout the country. China Tobacco claims its involvement is based on the desire to be a good corporate citizen, while tobacco control advocates say it misleads students into thinking smoking is safe. Read more here.

What prevents young adolescents from smoking? Self-reported motives of 12-15-year-old non-smokers (Germany)
A recent study of 707 non-smoking German adolescents found that 78.1% listed health reasons as motives for not smoking. The surveyed students were asked to write down their reasons for not smoking, resulting in 1,324 free text statements that were evaluated qualitatively. Even though health was the most commonly cited reason for being a non-smoker, with the exception of cancer, significant health risks associated with tobacco use (such as cardiovascular disease) were not mentioned. Other reasons cited by the adolescents were aesthetics (38.6%), lack of benefit of smoking (25.2%), and economic motives (20.8%); restrictions on smoking and smoking bans were not influential factors. These findings suggest that anti-smoking arguments surrounding health and beauty may be useful targets among adolescents. Click here to read the abstract of the study, published in the journal Health Policy.

Adolescents’ response to text-only tobacco health warnings: results from the 2008 UK Youth Tobacco Policy Survey (UK)
New research indicates that text-only health warnings on cigarette packages may help communicate the dangers of smoking, but only a small number of adolescent smokers forego cigarettes because of them. Researchers used data from 1,401 participants in the 2008 Youth Tobacco Policy Survey to assess salience, comprehension, memorability, depth of processing, and persuasiveness of the health warnings to adolescents. They found that while salience of the warnings was high, memorability and depth of processing were low. The warnings were a deterrent for never-smokers and occasional smokers, but only 6% of regular smokers reported not smoking because of the warnings. The researchers argue that because of the limited effectiveness of the text-only warnings, pictorial warnings would be more valuable and should be mandatory in European Union states. Click here to read the abstract of the study, published in the European Journal of Public Health.

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