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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Alison Snow Jones, PhD, Dept of Public Health Sciences / Social Science & Health Policy, Wake Forest University, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157, 336 716-2014, asjones@wfubmc.edu, W. David Austin, MS; MPH, Center for Health Promotion Research, RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, PO Box 12194, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2194, Robert H. Beach, PhD, Food and Agricultural Policy Research Program, RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, PO Box 12194, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2194, and David G. Altman, PhD, Center for Creative Leadership, One Leadership Place, P.O. Box 26300, Greensboro, NC 27438-6300.

Alignment of Tobacco Manufacturing Industry (TMI) and Tobacco Farmer (TF) interests has proved a formidable obstacle to tobacco control in tobacco growing states and nationally, by uniting TF political power with TMI economic power. However, TMI and TF business objectives are not necessarily concordant. Information asymmetry favoring the TMI over TFs combined with the TMI's more cohesive objectives and more plentiful resources may have provided the TMI with a strategic advantage in marshalling TF political power to advance TMI objectives. An examination of tobacco documents obtained under the Master Settlement Agreement chronicles and describes the evolving historical relationship between TFs and the TMI and provides evidence that the TMI may have exploited their strategic advantage in this relationship to combat tobacco control efforts. Qualitative analysis finds evidence of conflicting objectives between the two groups that have become more acute over time due to increased globalization and ending of the tobacco quota system in 2004. These same forces have tended to diminish TF political currency. Tobacco documents provide insight into ways in which tobacco companies' cohesion on key financial objectives and access to superior economic resources may have enabled the TMI to shape TF attitudes towards public health and tobacco regulation. Tobacco document data are placed in the context of historical and public health milestones, such as the 1938 Tobacco Price Quota System, establishment of links between smoking and health beginning in the 1950's, and recent tobacco market changes. Implications for future tobacco control efforts are examined and discussed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

(
• identify TMI business behavior which tended to disaffect the TF community; (
• identify TMI tactics used to dampen disagreement and solidify its coalition with the TF community; (
• identify TMI strategies to build more broad-based coalitions opposing tobacco control policies

Keywords: Tobacco Industry, Coalition

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No