ANALYSIS OF TOBACCO INDUSTRY INTERNAL DOCUMENTS: AUSTRALIA
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$150,000.00
Summary
In 1998, the Minnesota court ordered US tobacco companies to place over 30 million pages of hitherto secret internal documents on the www. Many thousands of these explicitly concern Australian tobacco control. This project will locate, catalogue, review and disseminate the strategic national, regional and international significance of these industry documents. Since the documents have been released, three legal cases have for the first time succeeded against the industry and the tobacco industry ....In 1998, the Minnesota court ordered US tobacco companies to place over 30 million pages of hitherto secret internal documents on the www. Many thousands of these explicitly concern Australian tobacco control. This project will locate, catalogue, review and disseminate the strategic national, regional and international significance of these industry documents. Since the documents have been released, three legal cases have for the first time succeeded against the industry and the tobacco industry agreed to a $US208 billion settlemnt with the US states -- the largest settlement in legal history. Detailed critical examination of industry documents addressing issues such as product formulation, health research, advertising and marketing, and political lobbying against tobacco control, holds great promise to provide unprecedented insights into local tobacco industry ambitions, research, marketing, public relations and lobbying activities, and counter-measures against tobacco control. These insights will be invaluable to public health scientists, policy advocates, lawyers and historians both in Australia and internationally. They will also provide a large amount of news material, essential to continuing efforts at keep tobacco control as a neon public and political issue deserving action.Read moreRead less
Extending The Australian Arm Of The International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Study
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$881,295.00
Summary
This project is to provide for the Australian arm of a large multi-national study to determine how tobacco control policies work. It is being conducted in the context of the implementation in 2005 of the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which Australia is a party. We will provide new knowledge on the impacts of specific policies which are being implemented in Australia, as well as ones that occur in other countries that are part of the larger study. These i ....This project is to provide for the Australian arm of a large multi-national study to determine how tobacco control policies work. It is being conducted in the context of the implementation in 2005 of the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which Australia is a party. We will provide new knowledge on the impacts of specific policies which are being implemented in Australia, as well as ones that occur in other countries that are part of the larger study. These include the adoption of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging, removal of misleading constituents levels information from packs, bans of misleading descriptors such as Light and Mild, and implementation of smoke-free bars. In addition it will advance our understanding of how policy effects persist over time, their equity, and the means by which they contribute to increased cessation and reduced relapse. We do this by following smokers every year in each of the countries and asking them about their thinking and actions with regard to smoking, as well as about their awareness of the policies. By comparing the responses of smokers exposed to policies with those from other countries that are not exposed, we can work out the contribution of the policies to changes in smoking. Understanding policy effects on smokers and smoking cessation will lead to improved policies in Australia and the likelihood of improved dissemination of policies that work here to other countries. Similarly policies found to work in other countries, can be best adapted to Australia if we understand how they work. Taken in total, it should advance our efforts to reduce the burden of smoking-related harm both in Australia and the rest of the world.Read moreRead less
Reducing Relapse For Smoking Cessation Using Augmented Callback Telephone Counselling
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$251,870.00
Summary
Tobacco use remains the largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in Australia. While there is an enormous literature on the health consequences of smoking and much literature on the effectiveness of a range of cessation interventions, understanding of the factors influencing successful cessation remain understudied and poorly understood. There is a growing body of work on the addictive nature of tobacco use (largely due to the nicotine) and, while this clearly plays a central rol ....Tobacco use remains the largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in Australia. While there is an enormous literature on the health consequences of smoking and much literature on the effectiveness of a range of cessation interventions, understanding of the factors influencing successful cessation remain understudied and poorly understood. There is a growing body of work on the addictive nature of tobacco use (largely due to the nicotine) and, while this clearly plays a central role, the contribution of cognitive and behavioural factors remains important - tobacco use needs to be conceptualized as a bio-psycho-social phenomenon. Perhaps the greatest challenge in changing addictive behaviours is the problem of relapse. This research will test some promising theories about factors that influence relapse beyond the first week or so of abstinence through testing an intervention based on changing these factors. We will test whether the addition of extra lifestyle change strategies onto Quit Victoria's effective Callback counselling service reduces relapse from attempts to quit smoking. If the intervention is successful, it will result in demonstrably superior quit smoking protocols for use in telephone counselling and potentially other forms of intervention, and result in more people giving up smoking permanently, thus saving many lives. If the new intervention fails to improve cessation over the standard callback program, it will have advanced our understanding of the complexities of relapse prevention and thus make future development of successful interventions more likely.Read moreRead less
Psychosocial Disorders Of Youth: A Population-based Prospective Study Into Young Adulthood
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$450,939.00
Summary
Much earlier work in adults has pointed to the teens as a common point at which many of the important causes of chronic disease and disability in adults begin. These include problems such as tobacco use, depression and anxiety disorders, obesity, alcohol abuse and illicit drug use. However, only a prospective study is able to clarify to what extent common health risk behaviours of teenagers pose a threat to later health and well-being and what characteristics indicate those most likely to go on ....Much earlier work in adults has pointed to the teens as a common point at which many of the important causes of chronic disease and disability in adults begin. These include problems such as tobacco use, depression and anxiety disorders, obesity, alcohol abuse and illicit drug use. However, only a prospective study is able to clarify to what extent common health risk behaviours of teenagers pose a threat to later health and well-being and what characteristics indicate those most likely to go on to problems such as nicotine dependence, recurrent depression and illicit drug abuse. The proposal deals with the follow-up ten years on of a representative sample of 2000 Victorian teenagers. Seven earlier waves of data collections have ascertained levels and risk factors for common behavioural and mental health problems in the teens and early twenties. These problems included depression and anxiety, smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, illicit drug use, deliberate self-harm, obesity, eating disorder, sexually risky behaviour, intravenous drug use, antisocial behaviours and accidental injury. This follow-up of participants at the age of 24 to 25 years will ascertain persisting rates of these problems including levels of substance dependence and mental disorder. Social outcomes such as educational achievement, employment, relationships, parenthood and friendships will be ascertained. In addition mouth washes will be used to collect DNA to allow investigation of genes that may make a contribution to more severe mental disorder and substance dependency. This study will give a clear picture of the outcome and consquences of common adolescent health problems. It will also clarify further psychosocial factors that contribute to their onset or outcome. Together with an analysis of candidate genes the study should make a great contribution to the information necessary for planning effective preventive intervention.Read moreRead less
How Do Media Campaigns And Tobacco-relevant News Coverage Influence Adolescent And Adult Smoking?
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$411,177.00
Summary
The study will merge measures of exposure to televised anti-smoking advertising, press coverage about tobacco issues and other tobacco control policies with (a) an annually interviewed cohort of 2,000 adult smokers from 2002-2008 and (b) triennial surveys of smoking among adolescents 1993-2008 (n-150,000). Analysis will determine the role of anti-smoking advertising and tobacco-related press coverage in moving smokers towards quitting and changing adolescent smoking.
Quit In General Practice: A Cluster Randomised Trial Of Enhanced In-practice Support For Smoking Cessation
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,117,241.00
Summary
Tobacco smoking remains the most common preventable cause of death and illness in Australia today. Smoking cessation programs are some of the most effective and cost effective strategies that can be undertaken in health care settings, including general practice. This project will test a new approach to supporting smoking cessation in general practice. This involves the practice nurse, GP and Quitline working in partnership to provide a flexible program of suport to meet the needs of smokers.
Investigation Of Tobacco Industry Efforts To Counteract Tobacco Control In Australia, 1970-2000
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$333,225.00
Summary
Tobacco use continues to be both the most important preventable cause of premature death and a key determinant of health inequity in Australia. Tobacco is a legally sold product which addicts many of its consumers, mostly as adolescents, and then kills half of them when used as intended. Comprehensive policy change, product regulation and litigation is required to put a halt to the tobacco industry's decades of avoidance, delay and disruption of tobacco control. In an interview for the Wall Stre ....Tobacco use continues to be both the most important preventable cause of premature death and a key determinant of health inequity in Australia. Tobacco is a legally sold product which addicts many of its consumers, mostly as adolescents, and then kills half of them when used as intended. Comprehensive policy change, product regulation and litigation is required to put a halt to the tobacco industry's decades of avoidance, delay and disruption of tobacco control. In an interview for the Wall Street Journal in 1995, Stan Glantz, from the University of California at San Francisco, equated the tobacco industry with other disease vectors: If you want to do something about malaria, you have to study mosquitoes and if you want to do something about lung cancer, you have to study the tobacco industry. Regulatory changes can only be justified by specific local evidence of both the private plans and knowledge of the tobacco industry to attack tobacco control and their public statements and actions designed to mislead consumers and effectively prevent or delay tobacco control. This study will document the public actions and statements of the tobacco industry in Australia between 1970 and 2000. It will draw on interviews with and personal records of tobacco control experts and former state and federal health ministers; as well as tobacco retail trade publications; print media reports; material obtained via Freedom of Information from State and Federal Health Departments; Federal Cabinet papers released under the 30 year rule (ie papers are available from prior 1972); and radio and television reports. It will complement a parallel study of the tobacco industry's internal documents. The outcome will be provision of strategically vital evidence to support effective tobacco control advocacy, policy formation, regulation and litigation in Australia, in the face of continuing industry countermeasures.Read moreRead less
The Use Of Web 2.0 Internet Sites To Undermine Tobacco Advertising Bans And To Mobilise Tobacco Control Advocates
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$365,531.00
Summary
With advertising bans eroding direct tobacco advertising opportunities, tobacco companies are embracing covert means of keeping their products and policies in current and potential consumers' minds. While the Internet is being used extensively to sell cigarettes, its largely unregulated status holds much potential as a vehicle for promoting smoking and tobacco products, as well as anti-smoking dialogue. This project assesses the potential of globally popular websites to promote and discourage sm ....With advertising bans eroding direct tobacco advertising opportunities, tobacco companies are embracing covert means of keeping their products and policies in current and potential consumers' minds. While the Internet is being used extensively to sell cigarettes, its largely unregulated status holds much potential as a vehicle for promoting smoking and tobacco products, as well as anti-smoking dialogue. This project assesses the potential of globally popular websites to promote and discourage smoking.Read moreRead less