Influence of Motion Picture Rating on Adolescent Response to Movie Smoking

Abstract

WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT: The US Surgeon General has determined that the relationship between movie smoking exposure (MSE) and youth smoking is causal; however, it is not known whether movie rating influences how adolescents respond. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS:The response to PG-13-rated MSE was indistinguishable from R-rated MSE. An R rating for smoking could reduce smoking onset in the United States by 18% (by eliminating PG-13 MSE), an effect similar to making all parents maximally authoritative in their parenting. abstract OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between movie smoking exposure (MSE) and adolescent smoking according to rating category. METHODS:A total of 6522 US adolescents were enrolled in a longitudinal survey conducted at 8-month intervals; 5503 subjects were followed up at 8 months, 5019 subjects at 16 months, and 4575 subjects at 24 months. MSE was estimated from 532 recent box-office hits, blocked into 3 Motion Picture Association of America rating categories: G/PG, PG-13, and R. A survival model evaluated time to smoking onset. RESULTS:Median MSE in PG-13-rated movies was ∼3 times higher than median MSE from R-rated movies, but their relation with smoking was essentially the same, with adjusted hazard ratios of 1.49 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.23-1.81) and 1.33 (95% CI: 1.23-1.81) for each additional 500 occurrences of MSE respectively. MSE from G/PG-rated movies was small and had no significant relationship with adolescent smoking. Attributable risk estimates showed that adolescent smoking would be reduced by 18% (95% CI: 14-21) if smoking in PG-13-rated movies was reduced to the fifth percentile. In comparison, making all parents maximally authoritative in their parenting would reduce adolescent smoking by 16% (95% CI: 12-19). CONCLUSIONS:The equivalent effect of PG-13-rated and R-rated MSE suggests it is the movie smoking that prompts adolescents to smoke, not other characteristics of R-rated movies or adolescents drawn to them. An R rating for movie smoking could substantially reduce adolescent smoking by eliminating smoking from PG-13 movies.

The rate of tobacco smoking among dental school students in Turkey

“…Parental smoking plays an important role in early onset of smoking in adolescents. 23,25 According to the present findings, most of the smokers and non-smokers reported to have non-smoker parents. There wasn't any significant difference between groups in parental smoking habits.…”

Effect of Exposure to Smoking in Movies on Young Adult Smoking in New Zealand

“…The fact that the odds ratio for the relationship between daily smoking and movie smoking exposure was relatively unaffected by adjusting for other variables suggests exposure to smoking in movies has an independent association with 30-day smoking prevalence in this age group. The relationship between current smoking and movie smoking exposure in our data is consistent with findings from countries with more liberal tobacco marketing environments [ 7 , 17 , 21 , 23 , 28 ], and suggests tobacco marketing restrictions should include all media, not merely traditional mass media.…”

“…We calculated exposure to smoking in movies using Sargent et al . ’s methodology [ 21 ], which summed the smoking depictions in the movies each respondent had seen, divided this figure by the total number of smoking occurrences in the set of 50 movies they viewed, then multiplied this ratio by the total number of smoking occurrences in the 423 movies (1291). This calculation gave each respondent’s movie smoking exposure (MSE).…”

“…This approach is similar to Sargent et al . [ 21 ], though we did not ‘Windsorize’ the data by recoding extreme values to those at the second and 98th percentiles to reduce the effect of outliers. Sensitivity analyses with varying degrees of Windsorizing (up to the seventh and 93rd percentiles) yielded only minor differences in the estimated odds ratios, meaning this adjustment would make little difference.…”

Rauchen in deutschen Filmen

“…Den unabhängigen Einfluss dieser einzelnen Risikoverhaltensweisen auf die Initiierung des Rauchens zu quantifizieren, ist methodisch anspruchsvoll [18]. Eine Arbeitsgruppe der Dartmouth Medical School näherte sich dieser Aufgabe, indem der Einfluss des Rauchens in Filmen auf den Raucheinstieg Jugendlicher mit unterschiedlicher Altersfreigabe untersucht wurde [19]. Die Überlegung war, dass es möglicherweise einen Unterschied macht, ob in einem Familienfilm mit geringen oder keinen Alterseinschränkungen, in dem es zudem keine Sex-oder Gewaltszenen geben sollte, geraucht wird oder bspw.…”