Subtle Instruction to Quit Smoking May be Efficacious for Certain Smokers.
There is no doubt that well-designed advertisements influence behavior of consumers, though the effects may vary depending on the advertisement targets. This is particularly true of tobacco advertisements. Deliberately coined words and images can effectively lead persons, especially youth, to acquiring smoking habits. However, demonstrating the effects of advertisements behavioral changes (eg. starting smoking and quitting smoking) in a framework of research is generally difficult, and epidemiologists tend to adopt a conservative stance against the association between such subtle messages and behavioral changes. Although we understand this stance as epidemiologists, we dare to report here a potential effect of a seemingly trivial message against smoking as observed in a follow-up study of smokers.
Hamajima
Nobuyuki
N
Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya 464-8681 Japan. nhamajim@aichi-cc.pref.aichi.jp
Matsuo
Keitaro
K