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NEW RESEARCH: HOLLYWOOD MOVIES DELIVER SMOKING IMAGES TO YOUTH IN U.S. AND ALSO INFLUENCE YOUTH ABROAD
5/8/2007
Statement from the American Legacy Foundation®
Smoking images in movies are reaching beyond the silver screen, across borders, and into our homes affecting those who are most vulnerable and likely to start smoking. Two studies released today provide evidence that American youth are exposed to billions of tobacco/smoking impressions through popular movies and show that movie smoking also influences youth smoking initiation abroad.
Research co-funded by the American Legacy Foundation and published today in The American Journal of Pediatrics found that U.S. films deliver billions of smoking impressions to 10-14 year olds in the U.S. – the ages at which youth are likely to begin experimenting with cigarettes. Researchers from Dartmouth Medical School found while R-rated films delivered the majority of smoking occurrences, they accounted for a lower proportion of smoking impressions (39 percent) on youth than PG-13 movies (50 percent). The study – the first to examine youth’s direct exposure to movie smoking – corresponds closely with previous findings that youth-rated movies deliver proportionally more smoking because of higher viewer ship rates for these movies.
Parent, youth and public health groups, including Legacy, the American Medical Association (AMA) and AMA Alliance, have been urging the MPAA to rate any new movie with smoking R to reduce youth exposure to film smoking. Just weeks ago, the Harvard School of Public Health advised the Motion Picture Association of America to “eliminate the depiction of tobacco smoking from films accessible to children and youths.” The findings of the Pediatrics study only confirm these efforts, stating that an R-rating for smoking would assure that movies intended for youth audiences would be smoke free, potentially decreasing exposure by 60 percent. Despite our best efforts and America’s growing concern with this issue, the MPAA has yet to respond publicly with substantial policies to protect America's children from tobacco advertising and images in feature films, which may have a greater psychological affect than traditional advertising.
A second study out of Germany published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found teens who had seen the most smoking in movies (mostly U.S. movies) were twice as likely to have tried smoking as those who saw the least amount – results that mirror findings in the U.S. The researchers also determined that smoking in internationally distributed movies is associated with current smoking among German adolescents. This evidence should impel the film industry to take this issue seriously as it has apparent potential worldwide risks. Today, in light of this evidence, the European Network for Smoking Prevention (ENSP) with 700 member organizations in 30 European countries, has resolved to raise public awareness of the impact of smoking in motion pictures on youth smoking. In addition, it has recommended the adoption of smoke-free movie policies that mirror those of the U.S.-based Smoke Free Movies group, including up-rating movies with smoking. (To view the policy solutions, visit: http://www.smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/.)
It is time for the influencers in the movie industry to do what is right and implement evidence-based policies for R-ratings that permanently and substantially reduce adolescent exposure to on-screen smoking. There is growing U.S. support for such policies, which will protect young people not only here, in North America, but wherever U.S. movies dominate the media culture and wherever the tobacco industry is hunting its next generation. When we get smoking out of youth-rated movies in Hollywood, it will be felt all the way to Kiev, Cape Town, Shanghai, and Djakarta.
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Contact: Julia Cartwright, 202-454-5596