Tobacco Documents Online

t American Medical Association l'h~,i( ians dedicatrd to the health of America News Release EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 1:45 P.M. (ET), TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1994 Media Advisory: John P. Pierce, PhD, can be reached through Nancy Stringer at 619/543-6163; Nancy J. Kaufman, RN, MS, can be reached through 609/243-5937. TOBACCO ADS WORKED WELL TO GET YOUNG GIRLS TO SMOKE Forty-four year study shows effect of targeted advertising NEW YORK--Aggressive cigarette advertising campaigns in the late 1960s, such as the early Virginia Slims campaign, resulted in a major increase in smoking by adolescent girls too young to legally purchase cigarettes, according to a study in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association. "There was no public health action against tobacco marketing after evidence that Joe Camel impacted young people because the tobacco industry demanded evidence linking advertising to the uptake of smoking in minors. This study provides such evidence," said John P. Pierce, PhD, in an interview. Pierce authored the study with colleagues from the Cancer Prevention and Control Program, University of California, San Diego, Cancer Center. He presented the information at a media briefing sponsored here today by the AMA and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The authors used data from the National Health Interview Surveys (1970, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1987, and 1988) to construct age-specific rates of smoking initiation for males and females aged 10 to 20 years from 1944 through the mid-1980s. Information from 102,626 respondents was used. "From the end of World War II through 1967, a stable, slightly increasing trend in smoking initiation was observed in adolescent girls," they write. ~ ~ --more-- ~ ~ Jeff Moltec Director 515 North State Street 312 464 5374 ~ Department of Science News Chicago, Illinois 60610 :312 464 5839 Fax ~ Paul'Farini, Associate Science 00 News Editor k~ W

Page 2 (WOMEN'S ADVERTISING) "ln 1967, the initiation rate increased rapidly in girls younger than 17 and peaked around 1973, at which time the rates were up to 110 percent higher than the 1967 rate." The researchers say the increase was particularly significant among females who never attended college (1.7-fold higher). "Initiation rates for females younger than 18 years peaked around 1973, at about the same time sales of these brands peaked," they say. Underscoring the notion that the ad campaign targeted young girls, the study found no evidence that initiation increased among males or women aged 18 years or older during this period. Initiation rates for 18-to-20-year-old men dropped abruptly after World War 11 (1944-1-949}, but then did not decrease again until the middle to late 1960s. "Initiation rates for boys younger than 16 years showed little change during the entire study period," they found. "In this study, we have demonstrated that tobacco advertising has a temporal and specific relationship to smoking uptake in f~irls younger than the legal age to purchase cigarettes," they write. "Our findings cdd to the evidence that tobacco advertising plays an important role in encouraging young people to begin this lifelong addiction before they are old enough to fully appreciate its long- term health risks." They conclude: "The prudent public health approach to prevent yet another increase among young people is urgent action to extend the ban on tobacco advertising to cover all forms of advertising and promotion." ~ ~ ~ --more-- ~ CG Ca ~ ~

t Page 3 (WOMEN'S ADVERTISING) Editorial: Physicians and the equal opportunity killer "Ever since the Baroness De Dudevant (Chopin's mistress, Paris, circa 1840) purportedly became the first woman to don men's trousers and smoke in public, smoking by women has become indelibly intertwined with inages of independence, fashion, and attractiveness," writes Nancy J. Kaufman, RN,iviS, from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, N.J. Kaufman says that since 1965, smoking prevalence among men has been cut nearly in half (from 51.9 percent to 28.1 percent in 1991), prevalence among women has only dropped by one third (from 33.9 percent to 23.5 percent). "if these trends continue, smoking prevalence for women may, early in the next century, equal that of men. Women have, indeed, "come a long way." Kaufman says that physicians and other health professionals have an essential role to play. "Opportunities abound, for girls and adolescent women have, on average, four physician contacts year, 60 percent of which (84 million) are office visits, with another 19 million hospital contacts.... Over 100 million golden opprtunities exist for prevention or cessation counseling per year, though most presumably are missed; only about 25 percent of adolescents remember ever being talked to about smoking by a health professional." Kaufman writes: "It is a cruel irony that the most sophisticated in society, if defined by wealth and education, have abandoned their nicotinic status symbol to those susceptible to the images of such status. Or that years of progress in broadening women's roles in society and attaining independence could, through the cigarette--once a symbol of female emancipation-- enslave young women with a powerful addiction." # For further intormation, please contact tne AMA's Paul Tarini at 312/464-5945.