 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Jeremiah Mock, MSc, PhD1, Ching Wong1, Stephen J. McPhee, MD2, and Ky Q. Lai, MD, MPH1. (1) Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project, University of California, San Francisco, 44 Page St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102, 415/476-0557, jpmock@itsa.ucsf.edu, (2) Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 44 Page Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102
The challenge when developing media campaigns for immigrants is to go beyond translation and make campaigns culturally evocative. From 1998-2001, we conducted a tobacco control campaign throughout California in Vietnamese-language print, radio and television media. The campaign featured Vietnamese-American celebrities who alerted their population about tobacco problems in their ancestral land, and marketing practices of U.S. tobacco companies in Vietnam. To assess the campaign’s impact, we conducted telephone surveys with a cohort of Vietnamese men from 1997 (n=1100), 1998 (n=687), 1999 (n=557), to 2001 (n=418) to track their awareness of the campaign and measure changes in smoking habits. A significant number of respondents changed their views to agree with the following campaign messages: cigarettes sold in Vietnam should carry health warnings (McNemar’s chi squared p<0.0001); health warnings on cigarette packages should be in Vietnamese (p<0.0001); children should not smoke cigarettes (p<0.0001); U.S. tobacco companies should not distribute free cigarettes because free cigarettes may end up in the hands of children (p<0.0001); and U.S. tobacco companies should adhere to the U.S. regulations when operating in Vietnam (p=0.0005). After the first year of the campaign, significantly more respondents reported having quit smoking than having started (p=0.0008). However, by the third year, some of those who reported quitting relapsed. Media campaigns can reshape Asian immigrants' views about tobacco and may reduce smoking if campaigns feature celebrities who talk about tobacco problems in their ancestral land. However, while themes that resonate with Asian immigrants may succeed initially, these themes' potency may fade over time.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Tobacco Control, Media Campaigns
Related Web page: www.healthisgold.org
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.