(Press-News.org) While Australia has recently passed legislation to ban logos from cigarette packages and to make plain packaging mandatory, other countries are still considering whether or not to take similar measures. New research published in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Public Health provides a report on the appeal of plain cigarette packs, compared to branded packs, among women in Brazil, and finds that plain packs reduce the appeal of their contents.
Tobacco use is responsible for 5.4 million deaths every year across the world and is a leading cause of preventable death. Like many other countries, Brazil has prohibited most forms of tobacco advertising, but has not addressed the issue of marketing by tobacco companies via the cigarette pack itself.
Research suggests that many brands appear to specifically target young women by use of 'feminine' colored packs, fruit flavorings, or by suggestive terms such as 'slim' or 'superslim'. Scientists from Canada, the US, and Brazil collaborated on this online study of 640 young Brazilian women to see if these cigarettes had the same appeal when presented in plain packaging (but still with the brand name and description on them). As a final test, the women were able to choose which they would have preferred as a free gift, one of the plain or branded packs (although there was never any intension for the packs to be sent out).
Dr David Hammond from the University of Waterloo, Canada, who led this study explained, "The women in this study rated branded packs as more appealing, more stylish and sophisticated than the plain packs. They also thought that cigarettes in branded packs would be better tasting and smoother. Removal of all description from the packs, leaving only the brand, further reduced their appeal. In the pack offer test, participants were three times more likely to choose the branded pack as a free gift."
The results from this study, the first to look at the effect of plain cigarette packaging on smoking in Latin America, backs up research in other countries, which has found that plain packaging makes cigarettes less appealing to young people.
Christine White from the University of Waterloo, Canada, concluded, "Our results suggest that plain packaging and the removal of brand descriptors are likely to reduce the appeal of smoking for youth and young adults. Overall, these findings support the recommendations for plain packaging in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control."
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Notes to Editors
1. The potential impact of plain packaging of cigarette products among Brazilian young women: an experimental study
Christine M White, David Hammond, James F Thrasher and Geoffrey T Fong
BMC Public Health (in press)
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request on the day of publication.
2. BMC Public Health is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on the epidemiology of disease and the understanding of all aspects of public health. The journal has a special focus on the social determinants of health, the environmental, behavioral, and occupational correlates of health and disease, and the impact of health policies, practices and interventions on the community. @BMC_Series
3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
Plain packaging reduces the appeal of smoking
2012-09-04
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