Anti-tobacco Policies Research Articles

Anti-Tobacco Education in Vacation Bible School in Mississippi: The Morality of Tobacco Prevention

Knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding the morality of tobacco use of 355 mostly African-American youth in Mississippi, were measured before and after tobacco prevention lessons in summer vacation Bible school. Knowledge and behavioral intentions were strong initially and did not change. Two attitudes improved: youth favored anti-tobacco policy and activism even more after the lessons compared to before. One attitude deteriorated: youth favored banning young people from tobacco less strongly after the lessons compared to before. Educational implications for introducing tobacco prevention, which may seem to be a secular topic, into a religious setting such as summertime Bible school, include covering important topics such as the perniciousness of tobacco companies, the negative influence of tobacco advertisements, the benefits of anti-tobacco policies, and ways to increase young people's personal comfort with anti-tobacco activism.

Principal and teacher reports of strategies to enforce anti-tobacco policies in Florida middle and high schools.

This study describes anti-tobacco policies implemented by middle and high schools in Florida. All schools had in place formal anti-tobacco policies but implementation of those policies was more rigorous at the middle school level. Principals and tobacco use prevention education teachers reported the formal and informal strategies used to enforce their school's anti-tobacco policies. Punitive enforcement strategies were more commonly reported than nonpunitive strategies. Enforcement strategies were significantly associated with several features of school settings including number of supports for teachers' efforts, teachers' perceptions of program success, and training opportunities for teachers. Middle school staff reported using significantly more enforcement strategies than high school staff, and their strategies were more likely to be associated with school context variables. Implications of these findings for the maintenance of anti-tobacco programs in secondary schools are discussed.

Improved Risk Information, the Demand for Cigarettes, and Anti-Tobacco Policy

This paper purports to develop a simple microeconomic model designed to shed light on behavioral change induced by improved information about smoking risks. It predicts the conditions in which improved information indeed increases the demand for cigarettes. After recalling the economic rationale of an anti-tobacco policy, the article points out a few startling implications of improved information about the risks of smoking.

Attitudes toward anti-tobacco policy among California youth: associations with smoking status, psychosocial variables and advocacy actions.

To prevent smoking and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, California has implemented anti-tobacco policies, including laws restricting youth access to tobacco, and smoking bans in workplaces, schools, restaurants and bars. Although studies have examined adults' attitudes toward anti-tobacco policies, little is known about adolescents' awareness of and support for these policies. This study examined attitudes toward anti-tobacco policies in a sample of 6887 10th grade California adolescents. Awareness of anti-tobacco policies was highest among current smokers and lowest among susceptible never-smokers. Support for anti-tobacco policies was highest among non-susceptible never-smokers and lowest among current smokers. Policy awareness and support were significantly associated with psychosocial tobacco-related variables (e.g. perceived consequences of smoking, friends' smoking, perceived access to cigarettes, prevalence estimates of smoking among peers, cigarette offers and cigarette refusal self-efficacy). Policy awareness and support were associated with the probability of performing advocacy actions against tobacco use. Although these results cannot prove a causal association, they suggest that adolescents' attitudes toward anti-tobacco policies may play a role in their decisions about smoking. Tobacco control and education programs should include information about existing anti-tobacco policies, and should educate youth about the importance and benefits of anti-tobacco policies.

Research in using mass media to prevent smoking.

Mass media are particularly appropriate for reaching young people in smoking-prevention campaigns; however, past research has placed little emphasis on designing effective interventions. Only a few studies have been conducted to develop and evaluate methods to use media for smoking reduction among youth, and only one quasi-experimental study has demonstrated actual reductions in youth smoking. This research requires the use of large controlled field studies that cross disciplines. These lack an established funding base. Furthermore, campaign approaches seeking to reduce youth demand for tobacco products are currently receiving less attention from anti-tobacco policy makers than approaches restricting the supply of tobacco to youth. Scientists from various health behavior and education disciplines should join with creative media production professionals to develop more effective messages and message delivery systems to reach youth at high risk of smoking. Further efforts should be made to share information among these professionals and producers of entertainment programs for youth, as well as among anti-tobacco policy makers, so that the most effective approaches can be employed to reduce youth smoking on a broad scale.

Measuring support for tobacco control policy in selected areas of six countries

OBJECTIVETo explore the validity, reliability, and applicability of using a short, psychometrically sound survey instrument to measure population attitudes toward tobacco control policies.DESIGNSurveys.SUBJECTS AND SETTINGStudent respondents attending university in Australia...