The Rotation of Health Warnings in Cigarette Advertisements: Compliance with the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act of 1984

Abstract

The Comprehensive Smoking Education Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-474) requires that cigarette manufacturers rotate four health warnings on all cigarette packages and advertisements. The Act requires the rotation of the four warnings on a quarterly basis for each brand. To evaluate compliance with the rotational-warning requirement, we studied the distribution of the warnings in 1,466 cigarette advertisements that appeared in 15 different magazines in 1986. There was no significant difference between the observed distribution of the four warnings and the “expected” distribution (25% for each warning) for all the advertisements studied and for those in individual magazines or magazine categories (e.g., women's magazines). We recommend (1) evaluation of the industry's compliance with the rotational-warning requirement for other advertising media and for the warnings on cigarette packages and (2) research to examine the effectiveness of the warnings as an instrument of health education.