New Study: Rural Youth Show High Levels of Awareness of truth® Youth Smoking Prevention Campaign

10/15/2009

Washington, DC – A new study in the American Journal of Public Health shows that an effort to reach youth in rural and low population communities around the country with anti-smoking messages via broadcast television was highly effective in raising campaign awareness. Increased exposure to the national youth smoking prevention campaign truth^® in rural communities caused high levels of awareness among rural youth, providing a hopeful platform to see decreased levels of smoking initiation given truth^®’s effectiveness.

Researchers from the American Legacy Foundation^®, a national public health group dedicated to reducing tobacco use in the U.S., tested the application of its award-winning youth smoking prevention campaign, truth^®, in rural and surrounding smaller communities using local broadcast television that supplemented a national cable television buy. The combination of using both channels was found to be a cost-effective method to raise awareness and extend the reach of the campaign to rural youth. Indeed, the study found that awareness of truth^®increased from 40 percent to 71 percent among youths in treatment markets. Youths living in rural and low population density communities were receptive to the campaign’s messages.

“The high percentage of youth we were able to reach speaks to the continued efficacy of using broadcast media to reach teens with important, life-saving messages,” said Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH, President and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation. “In its nearly ten years as a national campaign, truth^® continues to evolve – using different channels like social media, the Web, and branded entertainment to reach youth. Nonetheless, our television ads remain an iconic part of the truth^® campaign, and this study confirms that broadcast media is an important part of the marketing mix in order to reach our audience in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Based on this study, supplementing a national cable buy with spots running in the local broadcast market is an effective way to reach your audience.”

The increased broadcast buy came as a result of a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The three-year, $3.6 million matching grant extended the campaign’s reach in 41 rural markets across the country, from Spokane, Wash.; to Des Moines, Iowa; to Sioux Falls, S.D.; to Bangor, Maine. The study assessed results from eight different markets – smaller communities that typically have less exposure to the national campaign – and surveyed more than 3500 teens. The “classic” truth^® ads ‘Body Bags’ and ‘1200’ were the spots that played in the rural areas.

The researchers noted that the estimated costs for this type of intervention is approximately half of the CDC’s recommended annual per capita funding level for state health communication programs to reduce tobacco. The strategy of augmenting the national media delivery, the researchers said, can serve as a model for leveraging limited tobacco control resources to increase the impact of evidence-based tobacco prevention campaigns.

Overall, the study found:

More than 70% of youths in the treatment markets were aware of the campaign after the increased advertising, compared to 40% before the increased advertising.
Youth living in rural and low population density communities were highly receptive to the campaign’s messages:

80 percent agreed that all of the advertisements they saw were convincing
82 percent agreed that the ads grabbed their attention
77 percent agreed that the ads gave them good reasons not to smoke.

Confirmed awareness of truth^®increased from 40% to 71% among youth in treatment markets, while not shifting significantly in comparison markets where advertising did not increase.

Also as a result of a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, truth^® has been able to extend its successful summer tour into different cities and more rural areas in select states. Throughout the month of October, young adult truth^® “crew members” will reach teens and educate them about the health effects and social consequences of tobacco use at popular local events and through grassroots one-on-one marketing opportunities in seven states: New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas and Maine. The tour kicked off at the New Mexico State Fair in Las Cruces on October 1 and concludes on October 30 in Maine.

BACKGROUND ON THE STUDY:

In 2006, through a matching grant from the CDC, Legacy proposed to reduce disparities in youth smoking rates by increasing the dose of truth^® messages in rural and low population density communities that typically have less exposure to the campaign because of low cable television penetration. Past research had shown that more exposure to truth^® resulted in a decreased risk of smoking initiation.

The grant, entitled “truth^® or consequences,” increased advertising of the campaign to reach youth in rural communities that have less exposure to truth^® than youths nationally. This study explored the relationship among increasing levels of paid media messages, confirmed awareness, and receptivity to the campaign in eight of the communities from April to September, 2007.

FURTHER RESEARCH:

Two research papers published earlier this year found that truth^® remains highly effective as well as cost-efficient in its mission to prevent the youth of America from beginning to smoke. Two of the papers were published online in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM).

The first paper found that truth^® was directly responsible for keeping 450,000 teens from starting to smoke during its first four years, while the second study found that the campaign not only paid for itself in its first two years, but also saved between $1.9 and $5.4 billion in medical care costs to society.

In addition, in May 2007, the Institutes of Medicine presented a landmark report to Congress that found that America must implement strategies that effectively reduce and prevent smoking and combine those efforts with a changed regulatory and policy landscape to fight the nation’s number-one cause of preventable death: tobacco-related disease. The report specifically mentions the truth^® campaign, and “concludes that a national, youth-oriented media campaign should be a permanent component of the nation’s strategy to reduce tobacco.”

Further, a Monitoring the Future study released in December 2008 revealed smoking prevalence among youth to be at historically low levels. The study found 8th grade smoking rates down by two-thirds; 10th graders by more than half; and 12th graders’ rates down by nearly half since recent peaks in the mid-90s. The report cited “the American Legacy Foundation, which has sponsored national antismoking ad campaigns aimed at youth in the years since,” as a factor in the decline.

The American Legacy Foundation^® and the truth^® campaign have achieved this with only a fraction of the budget that the tobacco industry has spent on marketing its products. Based on 2005 Federal Trade Commission figures, the tobacco industry spends nearly $36 million dollars a day on domestic marketing, an amount that exceeds the annual truth^® budget. Currently, the Foundation faces a serious budgetary drop-off that may jeopardize its ability to develop and sustain its effective mass media campaigns.

BACKGROUND ON THE truth^® CAMPAIGN

truth^®, launched in February 2000, is the largest national youth smoking prevention campaign and the only national campaign not directed by the tobacco industry. The campaign exposes the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking. truth^® allows teens to make informed choices about tobacco use by giving them the facts about the industry and its products.

The American Legacy Foundation^® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation’s programs include truth^®, a national youth smoking preventspeak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches ion campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX^®, an innovative public health program designed to to reducing tobacco use; and a nationally-renowned program of outreach to priority populations. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit http://www.americanlegacy.org/.

###

Contact: Patricia McLaughlin, 202-454-5560, pmclaughlin@americanlegacy.org