Racial inequalities in exposure to tobacco advertising
Posted by Lance Gravlee on August 28th, 2007 |
Today’s New York Times has a short article about racial inequalities in exposure to tobacco advertising. The article is based on a new paper (PDF; subscription required) in Public Health Reports by Brian Primack and colleagues.
Among other things, Primack et al. identified five peer-reviewed studies that provided enough information to compute the density of tobacco advertisements by race. Pooling across these studies, Primack and colleagues found that there were 11.8 tobacco advertisements per 10,000 African American residents (95% CI 5.0-28.3), as compared to 4.5 per 10,000 white residents (95% CI 1.3-15.2). In other words, there were 2.6 times as many tobacco advertisements in predominantly black neighborhoods as there were in white ones. The confidence intervals on these estimates are large, mainly because one study of Boston neighborhoods observed a relatively small racial disparity. But even that study showed that tobacco advertisements are concentrated in predominantly poor, African American, and Latino neighborhoods.
This new paper by Primack and colleagues is important, because we know from other studies that smoking is the leading cause of disease burden in the United States. Primack and colleagues’ meta-analysis hints at how institutional racism shapes the distribution of disease in ways that people often overlook.
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7 Responses
I feel that the role of advertising in the choices of younger people to make bad health decisions is largely ignored. This study, along with one recently shown on UF’s main page, however are beginning to bring attention to the effects of marketing campaigns. The study on UF’s website looked at alcohol advertisements surrounding schools. Children of middle school age were interviewed and it was discovered that those that went to school in areas with a lot of alcohol advertising began drinking earlier and had less guilt about the subject. I believe that rules regarding what type of advertisements can be placed in certain areas need to be made and that these studies are the beginning of laying that ground. The alcohol and tobacco companies know exactly what they are doing; they are targeting areas with impressionable populations.
It’s actually quite an interesting topic for me because my background is actually in advertising/ public relations. In fact, part of the reason I swayed away from advertising was the simple fact that the idea behind it is to promote things which you may often times disagree with.
The difficult thing with outlawying things of this nature is that it is difficult to assess where to draw the line. For example, obesity is another leading cause of morbidity among our population, yet we display multiple ads for different fast food chains in areas where those most in risk reside. I don’t completely group food & cigarettes into the same category, but in some respects they are similiar.
For people such as myself who are in the public health field, it’s difficult to start interventions in areas most at risk if youth, or adults, are receiving one message from us and another from advertising companies.
Of course, the whole point of advertising is to increase your consumer base, and that often means targeting more impressionable audiences. The people behind these adverts know what they’re doing and they know the consequences that come with use of their product, and yet these ads persist. The question isn’t “Why haven’t they stopped,” so much as “Why isn’t anyone stopping them?”
In honesty, I doubt actual change or restriction of advert placement. The fact is, these companies are making money and, going back to what Madonna said in class, it seems as though profits are the bottom line.
Perhaps rather than banning certain ads, it would be preferable to support those campaigns that advertise healthier living. For example, in the case of obesity, you have billions of dollars being spent by fast food restaurants on their adverts…but how many vegetable commercials do you see?
Overall, however, I do feel that America is becoming more health-conscious. Still, I feel that increased research time should be spent on preventative measures. I think that there will be a shift in this area (from that of “treatments”) in the future.
I concur with the notion that Tobacco companies are targeting vulnerable regions, but the question is what are the people within these communities prepared to do? From a previous comment Ashley quoted, “‘Why haven’t they stopped,” so much as “why isn’t anyone stopping them?’” In a way I agree with Ashley about putting less prominence on what Tobacco companies are doing and placing more emphasis on actions being done. However, what failed to be mentioned is the reason why Tobacco companies continually target rural African communities. Over the years some African Americans within rural areas have become neutral about issues pertaining to their community. In a society filled with teen pregnancies, rape, crime, etc. it is clear to say that many African Americans have lost the zeal to address various issues as they did in previous years. Many people feel as though there are more imperative things in life to address than tobacco advertisement. The problem with this concept is that the idea of tobacco advertisement being inconsequential has created a cycle. Some people within these communities disassociate themselves from the issue of tobacco because it doesn’t pertain to them. As a result, putting aside this issue and disassociating oneself from tobacco advertising has created an insensible cycle.
The question shouldn’t be why isn’t anyone stopping them? The question should be why do some African Americans continue to sit and watch their community unravel into a god forsaken sink whole? It sickens me to see that some of the works of previous activists like Martin Luther king, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X etc. are sometimes forgotten. Unless blacks within these communities take a stance tobacco companies will continue to leech on what little remains.
I feel that right now there is racial inequality in about almost all kinds of advertising. Depending on the product that people are trying to advertise or sell there is always going to be a specific group that is going to be targeted. There are sometimes certain stigmas that people or certain groups have to deal with.
Last semester i had to do a project related to sunscreen and their target population. We discovered that many african americans weren’t being targeted because of the fact that they were dark skinned and many thought that because of that they could not get burned or be affected by the sun. Even though this group rarely experiences skin disorders due to the sun, when they do it is deadly.
You would think that when it comes to something like smoking they would try to target ALL smokers and not just smokers based on a certain race. We are all the same and even though we are of different race things like smoking ,cancer, drinking, etc affects us pretty much all the same. So when it comes to advertising for things like this i feel they should concentrate more on the people as a whole and less on a specific race, gender,etc.
I agree with what Joanne said about African Americans needing to take a stance on tobacco and advertisements pertaining to it. It is possible that a little bit of nicotene is the only respite some people have in lives that are already difficult and harsh. I feel that if behaviors like smoking are to be changed, it is necessary for this change to start within the group affected. Perhaps educational campaigns about the negative impacts of tobacco have not focused enough on getting their messages out to African American communities. Someone needs to take a stand before anything is going to change.
We should fight fire with fire, as the saying goes. Like Ashley mentioned, an advertising campaign that promotes healthy choices seems as though it would be effective. If tobacco advertising can convince people to smoke, it logically follows that healthy lifestyle advertising could get people to kick some of their destructive behaviors. The first step, though, is getting people to care enough to want to change.
Then again, you should also address the effects of smoking. For those addicted, it does provide a sense of calm, and, biologically, quenches those pesky symptoms of withdrawal. For those who smoke regularly, it provides respite from stress and anxiety (whether that stress is brought on from their environment and/or biological effects of withdrawal).
Kristina brought up the idea of a “difficult” and “harsh” living environment: a result of living in a less than preferred area. Being stuck in a certain socioeconomic status. In this matter, my feelings mirror Joanne’s comments. In the end, “indifferent good people”, to steal a concept from MLK, Jr., are not the only ones that need to instigate change. The cause lies in more than one area, and as such, the solution needs to mirror that multiplicity.
Going back to the beginning of this comment, I have to wonder: how do you combat the temporary relief that smoking offers? What offers that instant and cheap amount of stress/withdrawal relief? The idea of quitting and the very process of withdrawal is enough, for many people, to bypass that route. I can’t help but think that people who smoke do realize the intense effects it has on one’s body and the risks they are taking, and yet…
As many reasons as there are to quit, smokers are always able to find more to keep on smoking. How does one combat the immediate “positive”, albeit temporary, effects of smoking?