The reach and effectiveness of a national mass media-led smoking cessation campaign in The Netherlands.
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OBJECTIVES: This study examined the reach, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of a mass media-led smoking cessation campaign including television shows, a television clinic, a quit line, local group programs, and a comprehensive publicity campaign. METHODS: A random sample of baseline smokers (n = 1338) was interviewed before and after the campaign and at a 10-month follow-up. A nonpretested control group (n = 508) of baseline smokers was incorporated to control for test effects. RESULTS: Most smokers were aware of the campaign, although active participation rates were low. Dose-response relations between exposure and quitting were found. The follow-up point prevalence abstinence rate attributable to the campaign was estimated to be 4.5% after control for test effects and secular trends. The cost per long-term quitter was about $12. CONCLUSIONS: In spite of a massive rise in tobacco promotion expenditures prior to the campaign and the absence of governmental control over the media, the campaign under study may have increased normal cessation rates substantially. (+info)
Tobacco control advocates must demand high-quality media campaigns: the California experience.
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OBJECTIVE: To document efforts on the part of public officials in California to soften the media campaign's attack on the tobacco industry and to analyse strategies to counter those efforts on the part of tobacco control advocates. METHODS: Data were gathered from interviews with programme participants, direct observation, written materials, and media stories. In addition, internal documents were released by the state's Department of Health Services in response to requests made under the California Public Records Act by Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. Finally, a draft of the paper was circulated to 11 key players for their comments. RESULTS: In 1988 california voters enacted Proposition 99, an initiative that raised the tobacco tax by $0.25 and allocated 20% of the revenues to anti-tobacco education. A media campaign, which was part of the education programme, directly attacked the tobacco industry, exposing the media campaign to politically based efforts to shut it down or soften it. Through use of outsider strategies such as advertising, press conferences, and public meetings, programme advocates were able to counter the efforts to soften the campaign. CONCLUSION: Anti-tobacco media campaigns that expose industry manipulation are a key component of an effective tobacco control programme. The effectiveness of these campaigns, however, makes them a target for elimination by the tobacco industry. The experience from California demonstrates the need for continuing, aggressive intervention by nongovernmental organisations in order to maintain the quality of anti-tobacco media campaigns. (+info)
Factors affecting acceptance of immunization among children in rural Bangladesh.
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This paper uses the Bangladesh Fertility Survey 1989 data to identify the factors affecting acceptance of immunization among children in rural Bangladesh. Acceptance of DPT, measles and BCG vaccinations were the dependent variables. The independent variables included proximity to health facilities, frequency of visit by health worker, respondent's mobility, media exposure, education, age, economic status of household, region of residence, and gender of child. Logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the net effects of the variables in addition to univariate analysis. Among the independent variables, proximity to health facility, frequency of health worker's visit, mother's mobility, education, age, gender of child, ownership of radio, economic condition of household, and region of residence showed statistically significant association with acceptance of immunization. The effect of frequency of health worker's visit was dependent on region of residence, possession of radio, and mother's education. The effect of mother's ability to visit health centre alone was also dependent on ownership of radio, economic condition of household, and mother's education. (+info)
Provocative appeals in anti-smoking mass media campaigns targeting adolescents--the accumulated effect of multiple exposures.
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This paper reports findings from a longitudinal study that evaluated the accumulated effect of three consecutive mass media campaigns using provocative and dissonance arousing appeals to prevent cigarette smoking by adolescents. In the spring of 1992, all eligible adolescents aged 14 and 15 in one intervention county (N = 4898) and one control county (N = 5439) in Norway were included in the study, and were followed until they were 17 and 18 years of age in 1995. Only students who completed questionnaires both in 1992 and 1995 were included in the analyses. Among the non-smokers at baseline, a significantly lower proportion of adolescents of both genders had started to smoke in the intervention county compared to the proportion in the control county. Among those who were smokers at baseline, significantly more girls in the intervention county had stopped smoking than in the control county, while no significant difference between the counties was detected among boys. Our findings suggest that provocative and dissonance arousing appeals that create affective reactions and lead to interpersonal communication should be given more attention in campaigns designed to influence adolescent smoking. However, such appeals may easily produce negative reactions and the normative context should be thoroughly considered when using such appeals in future interventions. (+info)
Great earthquakes and medical information systems, with special reference to telecommunications.
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The Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in January 1995 caused the greatest number of deaths and injuries in Japan since World War II. Various weaknesses of modern information systems were exposed during and after the earthquake. The authors carried out a questionnaire survey to investigate the current state of hospital information and to examine the kinds of information needed immediately after an earthquake. The survey results show that information about the ability to admit new patients and the availability of medical supplies is necessary immediately after such a disaster. These results will be useful for planning countermeasures against this kind of disaster. (+info)
Media watch.
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In late 1997, Sharon Bernstein, a 35-year-old Los Angeles Times journalist and a new mother, was assigned the county hospital beat. Recently pregnant, the reporter was drawn towards stories of maternal and fetal health. So, she decided to look into obstetric malpractice claims against county hospitals. What she uncovered would change county hospital policy, lead to an assembly bill, and rekindle the medical debate about the safety of lowering Caesarean section (C-section) rates. (+info)
"First aid for scalds" campaign: reaching Sydney's Chinese, Vietnamese, and Arabic speaking communities.
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OBJECTIVES: As a serious yet preventable problem, scald injuries in children have been a priority for prevention in Australia and other developed countries. Not only can the occurrence of scalds be prevented, but immediate first aid treatment offers an effective method for secondary prevention, reducing the severity of scalds. Despite the success of scald prevention initiatives, local evidence suggested that first aid knowledge was lacking in some minority ethnic groups. To redress this gap, the "First Aid for Scalds" campaign for those from a non-English speaking background was specifically targeted to three ethnic groups (Vietnamese, Chinese, and Arabic), with the aim of increasing the proportions of parents and caregivers who had correct knowledge of first aid treatment for scalds. The primary strategy was a media campaign, including advertisements on ethnic radio and in ethnic newspapers. METHODS: The evaluation design included formative research and impact evaluation. The impact evaluation study involved random population based telephone surveys with each of the three language groups, before and after the campaign, to assess the reach and effectiveness of the campaign. RESULTS: After the campaign, there were significant increases in the proportion of people who knew the correct first aid treatment for scalds. There were substantial variations in campaign recall and knowledge between each of the three language groups. The largest improvement was found in the Vietnamese group. CONCLUSION: The association between campaign recall and increase in correct knowledge, and the absence of any similar interventions during the campaign period, give credence to the conclusion that the changes observed were a result of the campaign. The results demonstrate the value of community based injury prevention campaigns specifically targeting linguistically diverse communities. (+info)
Ethical requirements for occupational health research--compliance arrangements for a single company in relation to a recent major nuclear industry study.
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The media coverage given to occupational health studies in the field of ionizing radiation has, on occasion, been the cause of very real distress to radiation workers and their families. In response to this situation the Chief Medical Officers of the major UK nuclear companies developed an ethical policy for future involvement in research, based on the duty of care which researchers owe to a key customer of such studies: the worker. The policy consists of four principal elements: medical confidentiality; worker information; worker consent and the guarantee of the availability to the workers of pre-publication knowledge of the results. The policy issued in 1991/92 has achieved growing acceptance among researchers and medical journals, though the medical officers involved have been aware of some scepticism, particularly in relation to the practicalities of the dissemination of pre-publication information. The Record Linkage Study published in November 1997 marked a major piece of research work involving data from 120,000 radiation workers that had been carried out since the development of the policy. This paper reports on the successful compliance arrangements to meet the ethical requirements of that study within a single UK nuclear company, and is published to demonstrate that with commitment from researchers, the journal and occupational health staff such ethical requirements, and particularly the need for pre-publication information can be met in full. (+info)