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Tobacco Use: Mass-Reach Health Communication Interventions

CDC

An Evidence-Based Practice

Description

Mass-reach health communication interventions target large audiences through television and radio broadcasts, print media (e.g., newspaper), out-of-home placements (e.g., billboards, movie theaters, point-of-sale), and digital media to change knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors affecting tobacco use.

Intervention messages are typically developed through formative testing and aim to reduce initiation of tobacco use among young people, increase quit efforts by tobacco users of all ages, and inform individual and public attitudes on tobacco use and secondhand smoke.

Results / Accomplishments

The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends mass-reach health communication interventions based on strong evidence of effectiveness in:

-Decreasing the prevalence of tobacco use
-Increasing cessation and use of available services such as quitlines
-Decreasing initiation of tobacco use among young people

Evidence was considered strong based on findings from studies in which television was the primary media channel. Economic evidence shows mass-reach health communication interventions are cost-effective, and savings from averted healthcare costs exceed intervention costs.

About this Promising Practice

Primary Contact
The Community Guide
1600 Clifton Rd, NE
MS V25-5
Atlanta, GA 30329
(404) 498-1827
communityguide@cdc.gov
https://www.thecommunityguide.org/
Topics
Health / Tobacco Use
For more details
Healthy Marin