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Tobacco messages encountered in real-time among low socio-economic position groups: a descriptive study

Stevens, Elise M
Vázquez-Otero, Coralia
Li, Xiaoyan
Arya, Monisha
Vallone, Donna
Minsky, Sara
Osgood, Nathaniel D
Viswanath, Kasisomayajula
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Abstract

Background: Tobacco advertising disproportionately targets low socio-economic position (SEP) groups, causing higher rates of tobacco use in this population. Anti-tobacco public health education campaigns persuade against use. This study measured real-time exposure of pro- and anti-tobacco messages from low SEP groups in two American cities.

Methods: Individuals in low SEP groups (N = 95), aged 18-34 years old, who were smokers and non-smokers, from the Boston and Houston areas, took part in a mobile health study. They submitted images of tobacco-related messages they encountered via a mobile application for a 7-week period. Two coders analyzed the images for message characteristics. Intercoder reliability was established using Krippendorff's alpha and data were analyzed descriptively.

Results: Of the submitted images (N = 131), 83 were pro-tobacco and 53 were anti-tobacco. Of the pro-tobacco messages, the majority were cigarette ads (80.7%) seen outside (36.1%) or inside (30.1%) a convenience store or gas station and used conventional themes (e.g., price promotion; 53.2%). Of the anti-tobacco messages, 56.6% were sponsored by public health campaigns or were signage prohibiting smoking in a public area (39.6%). Most focused on the health harms of smoking (28.3%).

Conclusion: Low SEP groups in this study encountered more pro-tobacco than anti-tobacco messages at places that were point-of-sale using price promotions to appeal to this group. Anti-tobacco messages at point-of-sale and/or advertising regulations may help combat tobacco use.

Source

Stevens EM, Vázquez-Otero C, Li X, Arya M, Vallone D, Minsky S, Osgood ND, Viswanath K. Tobacco messages encountered in real-time among low socio-economic position groups: a descriptive study. BMC Public Health. 2021 Nov 20;21(1):2136. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-12197-3. PMID: 34801012; PMCID: PMC8606061.

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10.1186/s12889-021-12197-3
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34801012
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© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.Attribution 4.0 International