POLICY STUDIES ON LIMITING TOBACCO MARKETING TO YOUTH

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DESCRIPTION: In-store tobacco advertisements and promotions are an increasingly utilized marketing strategy to encourage tobacco use. The investigators' previous work indicates that point-of-purchase (POP) tobacco advertising and promotion are extensive, more prevalent near schools, and becoming more pervasive. Tobacco control activists and public policy makers, therefore, have expressed growing interest in restrictions on POP marketing, and the FDA last year proposed such regulations. While research has been conducted on the role of advertising in promoting adolescent smoking initiation, little is known about the influence of POP tobacco advertising and promotion on young people or the possible effects of policy options to restrict youth exposure to these pro-smoking messages. The investigators will assess the effects of three POP conditions ('tombstone" ads only, "tombstone" plus counter-advertising, and status quo) on adolescents' normative perceptions, assessments of risk, purchase intentions, and smoking-related behavior. This study consists of a randomized, cross-sectional survey of youth recruited from 28 classrooms of fifth-graders and 24 classrooms of seventh-graders in two school districts and a one-year follow-up assessment of a panel (cohort) of the youth recruited from 28 classrooms of sixth-graders and 24 classrooms of eighth-graders. The investigators will design and systematically pre-test "tombstone" and counter-advertising materials that could be used in stores that sell tobacco products. They will produce videotape simulations of typical store environments for two alternative POP advertising policies ("tombstone" ads only; "tombstone" ads plus counter-advertising) and a reference, status quo POP condition. These stimulus materials will be presented to students in classrooms. The research design enables the investigators to measure the immediate impact of exposure to the different POP conditions (year 1). They will also be able to determine the relationship between immediate responses to the videotaped POP policy options (and no-video reference condition) and subsequent smoking-related behavior (year 2). The investigators will disseminate the results of the study to other researchers, tobacco policy activists, and public health officials (year 3). The results will explicate the pro-smoking influences of tobacco POP marketing on youth and provide empirical data regarding the efficacy of two proposed policy options. They will measure adolescents' responses to inoculation counter-advertisements and determine if responses are predictive of future behavior.