Search

Purpose. Taxes are a critical tobacco control policy, yet little systematic research has determined how mass media represent tobacco taxes. This study aimed to characterize print media coverage of tobacco tax initiatives in South Carolina (SC). Design. Content analysis. Setting. The setting comprised 346 news articles from 2006 to 2010 in the four main SC newspapers. Subjects. N/A Measures. A coding scheme with good inter-rater reliability (α = .90–1.0) assessed article type (news vs. opinion), arguments, and the story tendency regarding whether it was in favor of the tax, against the tax, or neutral/mixed. Analysis. Chi-square tests and t-tests assessed hypotheses regarding the prevalence and number of different arguments and article tendencies across different time periods (i.e., legislature in session vs. not in session; successful vs. unsuccessful initiative) and article types. Results. Most articles were favorable toward the tax (59%), with favorable articles most likely to be found in opinion pieces than in news articles. Compared to unsuccessful tax initiative years (2006 to 2009), articles from the successful year (2010) were more likely to include pro-tax arguments about how the tax can raise state revenues (47% vs. 33%; p = .020) and pay for tobacco control programs (40% vs. 26%; p = .014). Unsuccessful years included a relatively higher percentage of stories about the lack of consensus regarding how the tax money should be spent (25% vs. 11%; p = .014). Within articles, the mean number of arguments favorable toward the tax and the mean number of economic arguments were marginally higher in the successful year compared to the unsuccessful years. Conclusion. Study results suggest that advocates build consensus and communicate more clearly on how tobacco tax revenue streams should be spent.

Pictorial health warning labels on cigarette packaging have been proposed for the U.S., but their potential influences among populations that suffer tobacco-related health disparities are unknown.To evaluate pictorial health warning labels, including moderation of their influences by health literacy and race.From July 2011 to January 2012, field experiments were conducted with 981 adult smokers who were randomized to control (i.e., text-only labels, n=207) and experimental conditions (i.e., pictorial labels, n=774). The experimental condition systematically varied health warning label stimuli by health topic and image type. Linear mixed effects (LME) models estimated the influence of health warning label characteristics and participant characteristics on label ratings. Data were analyzed from January 2012 to April 2012.Compared to text-only warning labels, pictorial warning labels were rated as more personally relevant (5.7 vs 6.8, p0.001) and effective (5.4 vs 6.8, p0.001), and as more credible, but only among participants with low health literacy (7.6 vs 8.2, p0.001). Within the experimental condition, pictorial health warning labels with graphic imagery had significantly higher ratings of credibility, personal relevance, and effectiveness than imagery of human suffering and symbolic imagery. Significant interactions indicated that labels with graphic imagery produced minimal differences in ratings across racial groups and levels of health literacy, whereas other imagery produced greater group differences.Pictorial health warning labels with graphic images have the most-pronounced short-term impacts on adult smokers, including smokers from groups that have in the past been hard to reach.