AsianScientist (Oct. 22, 2013) – A new study from the Institute for Global Tobacco Control (IGTC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows the wide reach of global tobacco marketing among children aged five and six.
The study, led by public health professor Dina Borzekowski at the University of Maryland, shows that the majority of very young children from low and middle-income countries are familiar with cigarette brands and close to 68 percent of children aged five and six were able to identify at least one cigarette logo.
The study took place in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Russia. Researchers worked one-on-one with children and played a game where they had to match logos with pictures of products, including eight logos for cigarette brands.
While two-thirds of the overall sample could identify at least one brand, the highest awareness was in China. There, 85.9 percent could identify at least one cigarette brand and, on average, Chinese children could identify 3.8 brands.
Overall, children who lived in households with a tobacco user were more likely to be able to identify at least one brand, but this was not consistent across countries studied.
“One interesting finding was that in China, India and Nigeria, living with a tobacco user was not significantly associated with awareness, suggesting that children were learning about tobacco brands outside of the household through environmental and media messages,” said Borzekowski.
The study’s findings suggest that more effective measures are needed to restrict tobacco marketing.
“Evidence-based strategies exist to reduce the ability of tobacco companies to market their products to children, such as implementing and enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Putting large picture warnings on the front and back of cigarette packs and requiring plain and standardized packaging, as Australia has done, also helps to reduce the attractiveness of cigarette packs among young children,” said Joanna Cohen, co-author of the study and director of the IGTC.
The article can be found at: Borzekowski DLG et al. (2013) International Reach Of Tobacco Marketing Among Young Children.
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Source: JHSPH; Photo: DucDigital/Flickr/CC.
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