Awareness of smoking risks and attitudes towards graphic health warning labels on cigarette packs: a cross-cultural study of two populations in Singapore and Scotland

Ocular Morbidity due to Smoking and Effect of Awareness among Smokers in Central India

“…Our finding was similar to that in another study on adult outpatients in ophthalmic, general medical, and general surgical clinics in Singapore and Scotland, in which the awareness of blindness as a smoking-related condition was 36.5% and 30.5%, respectively, the lowest amongst a list of conditions including lung cancer, mouth and throat cancer, heart disease, and stroke [10,11] Awareness of a smoking-related disease may help in reducing the number of cigarettes smoked, but this may also be dependent on the perceptions of vulnerability by the smokers and the extent to which they consider the condition to be life threatening. Health concerns remain the primary motive for smoking cessation [10].…”

Awareness of blindness and other smoking-related diseases and its impact on motivation for smoking cessation in eye patients

“…Our finding was similar to that in another study on adult outpatients in ophthalmic, general medical, and general surgical clinics in Singapore and Scotland, in which the awareness of blindness as a smoking-related condition was 36.5% and 30.5%, respectively, the lowest amongst a list of conditions including lung cancer, mouth and throat cancer, heart disease, and stroke. 7 Furthermore, although the awareness of other smoking-related conditions was associated to the number of pack-years smoked such that those who were not aware of these smoking-related diseases smoked significantly more pack years, this trend was not observed in subjects who were not aware of irreversible central blindness as a smoking-related condition. This may be due to the fact that blindness has yet to be established as a well-known smoking-related condition.…”

“…Our study and others 4,5,7,13 suggest that attempts should be made to highlight blindness as a smokingrelated disease as part of anti-smoking public health education. The use of graphic health warning labels on cigarette packets is one potential way to increase the awareness of the association between blindness and smoking.…”

“…15 A survey among adult patients in Singapore revealed that 58% of respondents indicated that graphic health warning labels on cigarette packs would be effective in discouraging them from smoking. 7 Additionally, public education on smoking through mass media campaigns and outreach activities in the community and workplaces have an equally crucial role. It has been shown that an increased level of awareness through tobacco control mass media campaigns is associated with a reduction in the prevalence of smoking.…”

Visual Function, Social Position, and Health and Life Chances

“…33 In tandem, eye-and vision-specific strategies addressing diseases with known sociodemographic correlates, such as glaucoma 34 and diabetic eye disease, 35 through targeted approaches to improving early detection, including formal screening programs, could routinely include metrics of social position to good effect within treatment and visual rehabilitation protocols.…”