Recorded presentation

Melanie Wakefield, PhD¹, Katherine Clegg Smith, PhD², Yvonne Terry-McElrath, MSA³, Henry Saffer, PhD⁴, Sherry Emery, PhD⁵, Glen Szczypka⁵, Patrick O'Malley, PhD³, Lloyd Johnston, PhD³, Frank J. Chaloupka, PhD⁵, and Brian Flay, DPhil⁵. (1) Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, Cancer Control Research Institute, The Cancer Council Victoria, 100 Drummond Street, Carlton, Victoria, 3053, Australia, (2) Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University, 624 N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205, (3) Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Survey Research Center, Room 2341, 426 Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2321, 734-647-9142, yterry@isr.mich.edu, (4) National Bureau for Economic Research, 365 Fifth Avenue 5th Floor, New York, NY 10017-5405, (5) Health Research and Policy Centers, University of Illinois at Chicago, 850 W Jackson Blvd., Suite 400, Chicago, IL 60607

Media advocacy has been an important, but little researched, component of tobacco control programs. Literature suggests that media advocacy might work together with anti-smoking advertising to enhance overall campaign impact (Wallack et al, 1993; Jernigan and Wright, 1996). This study examines the extent to which televised anti-smoking advertising and press coverage on tobacco evidence individual and combined effects on youth smoking beliefs and behaviors. We employ indices of potential exposure to televised anti-smoking advertising at the media market level for the top 74 media markets in the continental US using teen-targeted rating points (TRPs) purchased from Nielsen Media Research. We also utilize aggregate indices of likely community exposure to newspaper coverage on tobacco issues, including total volume of articles, and extent of supportiveness for tobacco control in terms of both reported events and opinions voiced in coverage. We investigate the individual and combined effects of these two forms of media using multi-level analysis on individual student self-reported smoking-related attitudes and behaviors using data from 8th, 10th and 12th grade youth in the 2000-2001 Monitoring the Future surveys. Analyses control for individual factors and other tobacco policies usually associated with youth smoking. This study addresses issues of whether communities with higher levels of anti-smoking advertising have greater and more supportive news coverage on tobacco issues, and whether the valence of community news coverage modifies the relationship between anti-smoking advertising and youth smoking related beliefs and behavior.

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