Which types of televised anti-tobacco campaigns prompt more Quitline calls from priority population subgroups?

An enormous challenge for further progress in tobacco control is how to tackle the consistently higher levels of smoking prevalence found among disadvantaged groups. Televised anti-smoking campaigns have been found to provide an effective population wide method of promoting adult smoking cessation. It is, however, unclear to what extent mass media campaigns may be able to redress disparities in quitting behaviour across population subgroups, and whether this differs across different styles of campaign. Telephone Quitlines are commonly used as a source of help to quit. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between exposure to different types of anti-tobacco advertising and calls to Quitlines from different population sub-groups. Daily level Quitline data (N=205 days: December 2006 - July 2007, Victoria, Australia) was matched to daily level advertising gross rating points. Different anti-tobacco campaigns were coded as narrative (personal emotional stories) or negative visceral/graphic. After controlling for time, policy changes, key quitting dates, and day of week, analyses indicate that exposing the population to the personal narrative ad generated similar increases across population subgroups in Quitline calls. However, for the negative visceral/graphic ads, disadvantaged groups did not respond as strongly as the more advantaged groups. These findings suggest that media campaigns utilizing narratives about health effects of smoking may be more effective with these priority population subgroups in prompting help-seeking to quit, than graphic depictions of these consequences.