Smith K Clegg, Wakefield M A, Terry-McElrath Y, Chaloupka F J, Flay B, Johnston L, Saba A, Siebel C
Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624 N Broadway, Room 726, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Tob Control. 2008 Feb;17(1):17-24. doi: 10.1136/tc.2007.020495.
Geographic variation in youth smoking prevalence suggests that community-level factors influence risk of tobacco use. We examine the extent to which newspaper coverage of tobacco issues is related to youth smoking attitudes and behaviours.
We conducted a content analysis of 8390 newspaper articles on tobacco issues from 386 daily newspapers circulating at 5% or more in 2001-3 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey communities. This resulted in the creation of community level measures of news volume, content and valence. Associations between news and youth outcomes were assessed using logistic regression analyses adjusting for individual, geographic and tobacco policy factors linked to youth smoking and attitudes.
98,747 youth participating in the nationally representative school-based MTF annual surveys between 2001 and 2003.
Perceived harm of smoking, perceived peer smoking, disapproval of smoking, smoking within the past 30 days, daily cigarette consumption.
In the five months preceding survey administration, newspapers in MTF communities published an average of 11.9 tobacco related articles (range 0-55.7). Each 10-article increase in newspaper volume over the five-month period was associated with increased odds of perceiving great harm from smoking (OR = 1.04, p<0.01) and disapproving of smoking (OR = 1.04, p<0.05) and decreased odds of perceiving most or all friends smoke (0.94, p<0.01) and smoking in the past 30 days (OR = 0.93, p<0.001). No consistent association was found between the content or valence of coverage and youth smoking outcomes.
Gaining and keeping tobacco on the media agenda is an important tool for tackling youth smoking. As volume appears to be the driving factor, media advocacy may be best targeted towards generating events and highlighting issues likely to increase and sustain news attention.
青少年吸烟率的地区差异表明社区层面的因素会影响烟草使用风险。我们研究了报纸对烟草问题的报道与青少年吸烟态度及行为之间的关联程度。
我们对2001 - 2003年“未来监测”（MTF）调查社区中发行量占比达5%或以上的386份日报上的8390篇关于烟草问题的报纸文章进行了内容分析。由此创建了社区层面的新闻量、内容及倾向的衡量指标。使用逻辑回归分析评估新闻与青少年结果之间的关联，并对与青少年吸烟及态度相关的个体、地理和烟草政策因素进行了调整。
98747名参与2001年至2003年具有全国代表性的基于学校的MTF年度调查的青少年。
对吸烟危害的认知、对同伴吸烟的认知、对吸烟的不赞成态度、过去30天内吸烟情况、每日香烟消费量。
在调查实施前的五个月里，MTF社区的报纸平均发表了11.9篇与烟草相关的文章（范围为0 - 55.7篇）。在这五个月期间，报纸文章数量每增加10篇，就与认为吸烟危害极大的几率增加（比值比=1.04，p<0.01）、不赞成吸烟的几率增加（比值比=1.04，p<0.05）以及认为大多数或所有朋友吸烟的几率降低（0.94，p<0.01）和过去30天内吸烟的几率降低（比值比=0.93，p<0.001）相关。未发现报道内容或倾向与青少年吸烟结果之间存在一致的关联。
将烟草问题纳入并持续置于媒体议程是解决青少年吸烟问题的一项重要工具。由于新闻量似乎是驱动因素，媒体宣传可能最好针对引发事件并突出那些可能增加并持续吸引新闻关注的问题。
