The Arizona Department of Health Services' Tobacco Education and Prevention Program launched a multimillion-dollar anti-tobacco media campaign on Superbowl Sunday, 1996. Evaluation of the campaign was undertaken in July 1998 with a baseline survey of 619 adults and 1,025 youth aged 10-17. A follow-up survey of 403 adults and 407 youth aged 10-17 was conducted one year later (September 1999). Information was collected by using a computer-generated random digit dial telephone sampling. Data was collected in both surveys assessing tobacco use, opinions and attitudes toward tobacco use; youth susceptibility; campaign penetration, impact, and behavioral and attitudinal attributions made to the campaign. Because adult smokers were oversampled in the follow-up, relevant comparisons for adults were made by comparing Smokers to Smokers and Nonsmokers to Nonsmokers. The cumulative impact of the campaign was assessed by a comparison of the follow-up data to the baseline data. Follow-up responses evidence increasingly greater anti-tobacco attitudes and opinions by adults and youth, with the largest changes occurring among adults. Tobacco was viewed as a serious problem by significantly more youth and by smoking and nonsmoking adults in the follow-up survey. In addition, smoking adults increasingly dislike being around others who are smoking and report stricter home smoking rules. Recall of tobacco prevention and cessation television ads was high and attributions about tobacco use were encouraging. Reactance, as measured by agreement with the items "deciding to keep using tobacco" or "deciding to increase tobacco use" because of the ads, has decreased significantly for both adults and youth.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to: 1. Discuss issues involved with statewide mass media public health interventions. 2. Identify outcomes of the Arizona tobacco prevention and cessation media evaluation, i.e., knowledge, attitude and behavioral outcomes. 3. Assess the potential role of reactance as an obstacle to be overcome in public health interventions. During the session: 1. The discussion will address the design of the evaluation. 2. The presentation will include actual examples of the campaign messages. 3. The presentation will present and discuss relevant findings regarding media exposure, knowledge, attitude, and behavior
Keywords: Tobacco, Health Communications
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.