Canada's big, graphic cigarette package warnings showing diseased lungs and rotting teeth appear to be working. A new study finds the warnings grab the attention of smokers.
Canada was the first country to put photos on cigarettes, along with 16 different text warnings, such as "Cigarettes Cause Strokes,'' back in December 2000. Other countries are now beginning to follow suit.
Researchers surveyed 15,000 adult smokers in Canada, the U.S., the UK and Australia four times between 2002 and 2005. They asked them whether they noticed the warnings on cigarette packages and how often they read them.
"And what we found is when you compare the picture warnings on Canadian packages compared to, say, the small print on the side of U.S. cigarette packages, there's no comparison -- we're doing far better," says David Hammond, the University of Waterloo researcher who co-authored the study.
When the survey was first conducted, the U.K. had six text warnings comprising just six per cent of packs, front and back; Australia's warnings were slightly larger (a quarter of the front and a third of the back); while the four U.S. warnings -- unchanged since 1984 -- are on the side of the pack in small text.
Since 2003, the U.K. has blown up its warnings' size to a third or more of the face and back of packages. The proportion of U.K. smokers who reported noticing warnings "often'' or "very often'' has soared since, from 44 per cent in 2002 to 82 per cent by the second survey.
Hammond says he's not surprised to find that image-filled warnings are more effective than text.
"We know that pictures are more vivid, they're more emotionally engaging for smokers," he told Canada AM.
"Clearly, understanding health risks is more than statistics, it's more than knowing it's bad for you. The more vivid, the more emotionally appealing you make that information, the more likely it is to be effective."
Hammond says he hopes other countries will heed his study's results and change their cigarette packaging too.
"These findings are very important for many countries in the world, developing countries that are currently thinking about changing their warning labels. They're trying to decide between text and pictures, and this study suggests they're going to get more benefit from pictures."
The study was paid for by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and published Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Canadian smokers are going to see more supportive information on future packaging, Hammond expects.
"Most smokers in Canada actually support the health warnings," he says. "But they tell us they would like to see things like a telephone quit line, more tips, and different methods of quitting on the package for when they're ready for it."
