Public Health Magazine: Spring 1996, Vol.4, No.1
Smoke Alarm!-- Keeping Kids from Getting Hooked
Snakes and Snails And...Cigarette Sales?

The 1994 Surgeon General's report on tobacco and young people concluded that "cigarette advertising appears to increase young people's risk of smoking by affecting their perceptions of the pervasiveness, image, and function of smoking." Nevertheless, much remains to be understood about how tobacco advertising influences youth, and how counter-advertising campaigns can be made more effective.

To better understand the connections between tobacco advertising and young people, a cadre of CSPH sociomedical sciences researchers are in the midst of a year-long investigation. Funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and headed by Donald Gemson, M.D., M.P.H., co-director of CSPH's Harlem Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, the study will include a series of three expert panel discussions involving leading advertising industry professionals. Working with the advertising professionals, the project aims to make recommendations for innovative counter-advertising strategies, and to identify future research needs on youth tobacco use behaviors.

"What attracted the CDC to our team was that we were able to put together a multidisciplinary collaboration that included experts from the advertising industry," Gemson says, adding that it helped being based in New York City, which is still considered by many to be the epicenter of the advertising business.

Joining Gemson in the study are Associate Dean Cheryl Healton, Dr. P.H., Peter Messeri, Ph.D., Steve Rabin, J.D., president of Issuesphere, a marketing agency, Elizabeth Ann Kovacs, M.A.T., M.P.H., former executive vice president of the Public Relations Society of America, and graduate research assistant Anke Schulz.

Regarding charges that anti-smoking efforts aimed at youths may be counterproductive because they divert attention from America's 40 million adult smokers, Gemson notes that the vast majority of smokers start before the age of 18, a fact that has prompted Food and Drug Administration Director David Kessler to label smoking a pediatric disease.

"The average age of [smoking] initiation is 14, and thousands of smokers become addicted to nicotine in their teens," Gemson says. "If we are to significantly reduce the more than 400,000 tobacco-related deaths each year, we must reduce initiation among teens. That's why the federal government, the CDC, and many others in the field are targeting it."

-CZ