Tobacco control
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The public receives mixed messages about the harmfulness of alternative tobacco products to cigarettes, and little is known about what present and potential users of these products actually think about their relative harmfulness. ⋯ Compared with the current scientific consensus, the participants overrated the harmfulness of snus and, as such, our results suggest a potential for changing peoples' perceptions of the relative health risks of various tobacco products. To the extent that health information affects consumption, accurate information on relative risks may lead more people to choose snus over cigarettes.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
How does increasingly plainer cigarette packaging influence adult smokers' perceptions about brand image? An experimental study.
Cigarette packaging is a key marketing strategy for promoting brand image. Plain packaging has been proposed to limit brand image, but tobacco companies would resist removal of branding design elements. ⋯ Plain packaging policies that remove most brand design elements are likely to be most successful in removing cigarette brand image associations.
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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has made tobacco use prevention a primary health issue. All ASEAN countries except Indonesia have ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the world's first public health treaty on tobacco control. ⋯ Efforts to reduce the current and projected harm caused by tobacco use in the ASEAN countries are urgently needed. ASEAN countries need to expand their national comprehensive tobacco prevention and control programs and enforce those laws already passed. Without this effort little reduction can be expected in the burden of chronic diseases and tobacco-related mortality.