Quantifying and characterizing tobacco content in the most..
Fitzpatrick I, Byrne D, Gilmore AB, et al. Quantifying and characterizing tobacco content in the most in-demand streamed series in 10 low/middle-income countries in 2019. Tobacco Control. Published Online First: 24 June 2022. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2022-057278.
“Tobacco use was present in 34% (38 of 111) of analyzed episodes from 18 in-demand series across 10 LMICs; 45% of that content (17 of 38) was youth-rated. While three-quarters of smoking characters were deemed to be aged 30 years or over (75%, 85 of 113) and only 5% (6 of 113) of characters using tobacco were under 18 years, the data suggest that tobacco depictions in streamed content continue to glamorize smoking; characterizations of tobacco use by ‘stars’ were overwhelming (73%, 83 of 113), while nearly half of tobacco use characterizations were positive, depicted as either fun, cool or sexy. Not only is tobacco frequently portrayed in a positive light, but these positive portrayals also occur in youth-rated content nearly 50% of the time. This means that exposure to the positive depiction of tobacco use by influential actors is likely a common occurrence among youth audiences.”
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2022/06/23/tobaccocontrol-2022-057278
Stephen Hamann
