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Tobacco-company-sponsored parties with
free cigarettes may encourage college students to start smoking
Industry's youngest legal targets
now 18- to 24-year olds
BOSTON - December 28, 2004 - A widespread tobacco industry
marketing strategy - sponsoring social events and giving out free
cigarettes at bars, clubs, and college parties - is reaching students
and may be encouraging them to take up smoking, according to a new
study released today. The study, part of the Harvard School of Public
Health (HSPH) College
Alcohol Study (CAS), appears in the January issue of the American
Journal of Public Health. The study was led by Nancy Rigotti,
MD, Director, Tobacco Research and Treatment Center of Massachusetts
General Hospital (MGH).
According to the study, students at all but one of the 119 U.S.
colleges and universities surveyed reported attending a tobacco-industry-sponsored
social event on or off campus in 2001. Although the number of students
reached at many schools was relatively small, up to 27 percent of
students were reached at some schools. Overall, 8.5 percent of students
had attended a tobacco-industry-sponsored social event where free
cigarettes were distributed. Bars and nightclubs were the most common
settings, but students also reported attending events on college
campuses, a site that has received less attention and provides direct
access to students.
Those who had attended these tobacco promotions were more likely
to be current smokers, compared to students who had not attended
an event. Perhaps most notably, the study suggested that these events
could be a powerful inducement to begin smoking. Students who had
not started to smoke by the age of 19 were especially likely to
have become smokers by the time of the survey if they had been exposed
to a tobacco promotion at a bar, nightclub, or college social event.
This is the first study that has measured young adults' exposure
to a tobacco industry marketing strategy that has assumed greater
prominence since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, in which
the tobacco industry agreed not to market to teenagers, making young
adults (aged 18 to 24) its youngest legal targets. "By distributing
cigarettes and sponsoring these events in bars and on college campuses,
the tobacco industry promotes the idea that cigarettes are an essential
part of young adults' social lives," said Rigotti.
The study analyzed data from the 2001 HSPH CAS, a random sample
of 10,904 students enrolled in 119 nationally representative 4-year
U.S. colleges and universities. The study authors were Rigotti,
Susan Moran, MD, also of the MGH Tobacco Research and Treatment
Center; and Henry Wechsler, PhD, director of the HSPH College Alcohol
Study.
Bars and nightclubs have assumed greater importance for tobacco
marketing since the Master Settlement Agreement, which limits the
distribution of free cigarette samples to facilities that do not
admit minors. Bars and nightclubs also are smoker-friendly environments
for the tobacco industry, because they are among the few places
where smoking is not generally restricted by clean-air laws.
In the study, students who reported attending these events were
more likely to be current cigarette smokers (defined as having smoked
a cigarette in the past 30 days) than students who had not attended
one of these events. Even after statistical adjustments for a broad
range of factors that might have explained the relationship, a strong
association remained between attending tobacco-industry-sponsored
events and current smoking, with those attending such events 75
percent more likely to be current smokers..
Furthermore, the analysis suggested that the effect of bar promotions
on smoking behavior was strongest on students who had entered college
as nonsmokers. Of the 8,482 students (78 percent) who did not smoke
regularly before age 19, the current smoking prevalence rate was
23.7 percent among those who had attended a promotional event compared
with 11.8 percent among those who had not. In contrast, in the 2,334
students who smoked regularly before age 19, there was no significant
difference in current smoking prevalence between those who had and
had not attended a tobacco promotional event.
"These findings should serve as a wake-up call to college
and university administrators," said Wechsler. "The evidence
that these events may influence a non-smoking young person's decision
to start smoking is a good reason they should be alert to tobacco
industry sponsorship of these events and take appropriate action
on their campuses." The American College Health Association
recommends that colleges ban the free distribution of tobacco products
on campus, including at fraternities and sororities, and prohibit
tobacco industry sponsorship of social events held by any organization
that receives college funds.
"These findings also give states and communities another good
reason to adopt smoking bans in bars and nightclubs," says
Rigotti. "Tobacco-free bars and nightclubs are likely to be
less attractive as sites for tobacco industry promotions. Decoupling
smoking and drinking will likely be an effective way to counteract
the tobacco industry's marketing strategies."
The study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the
Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute, and the National Heart
Lung and Blood Institute
Massachusetts General Hospital, established in 1811, is the original
and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH
conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United
States, with an annual research budget of more than $400 million
and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer,
cutaneous biology, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders,
transplantation biology and photomedicine. In 1994, MGH and Brigham
and Women's Hospital joined to form Partners HealthCare System,
an integrated health care delivery system comprising the two academic
medical centers, specialty and community hospitals, a network of
physician groups, and nonacute and home health services.
Media Contact: Julie
Bergan , MGH Public Affairs
Physician Referral Service: 1-800-388-4644
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