Most Children Unaware of Cigarette Warning Labels

An international study of children’s perceptions of cigarette package warning labels found that the majority of children are unaware that they exist. Children in countries where larger warning labels are used, and which include a compelling graphic image of the negative health impacts of smoking, were more likely to be aware of and understand the health risks of tobacco products.

The study, led by Dina Borzekowski, Ed.D, in the University of Maryland School of Public Health (UMD), and Joanna Cohen, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHU), showed that only 38 percent of children had any awareness of warning labels currently being featured on cigarette packages. Even after showing warning labels to participating children, around two-thirds (62 percent) of the children were unable to explain what the health warnings were about. Among the six countries studied, awareness and understanding of health warning labels was greatest among children in Brazil, where graphic warning labels, often featuring extremely gruesome pictures, have been featured since 2002 and cover 100 percent of either the front or back of the cigarette package.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Public Health, offer data from a sample of 2,423 five and six year-old children interviewed in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Russia about their awareness and understanding of cigarette health warning labels.

“Pro-smoking messages are reaching the world’s most susceptible audiences,” explains Borzekowski, research professor in the UMD's Department of Behavioral and Community Health. “We need to do a better job globally to reach children with anti-smoking messages.

To do this, health warning messages should be big and clear, especially for low-literacy populations, children and young people.” According to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), tobacco product packages and labeling should effectively communicate the health risks associated with tobacco use, and that the effectiveness of these health warnings and messages increases with their prominence and with the use of pictures.

The Power of Cigarette Warning Labels A provocative new study has suggested that the Food and Drug Administration greatly underestimated how much graphic warning labels on cigarette packs reduced the rate of smoking among Canadians. As a result, the study says, the F.D.A. vastly underestimated the impact such warnings would have in the United States.

The interpretation of this data is crucial because a federal appeals court blocked the F.D.A.’s first attempt to require graphic warning labels on the grounds that the agency had shown no persuasive evidence that the warnings were likely to reduce smoking rates.

Most experts agree that the biggest deterrent to smoking is raising the cost of cigarettes. As a result, whatever impact graphic warnings had after they were introduced in Canada in 2000 depends heavily on the cost of cigarettes in that period.