Youth Exposure To Tobacco Ads Has Decreased Since Landmark Legal Settlement
Youth exposure to magazine advertising for tobacco products has decreased as a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), a legal agreement between state attorneys general and major tobacco companies, according to an article by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health published today on the Health Affairs Web site.
Annual spending for tobacco advertising in magazines decreased by 77 percent in the eight years after the MSA was signed, declining from $402.1 million in 1998 to $91.9 million in 2006, the Harvard researchers say. The news was not all good, however. Since the MSA, tobacco manufacturers have concentrated their advertising in brands disproportionately purchased by young smokers.
You can read the Health Affairs article by Hillel Alpert, Research Associate in the Division of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health, and coauthors at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.27.6.w503
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Kathleen Ford
mailto:KFord@projecthope.org