May 21, 2015

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

CDC's 2014 annual report on studio performance on smoking in movies now available


The CDC just released its annual update of its fact sheet on studio performance on smoking in movies; you can read it at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/movies....
 
Here is their overview:
 

  • Watching movies that include smoking causes young people to start smoking. The more smoking young people see on screen, the more likely they are to start smoking.
  • The percentage of youth-rated movies (G, PG, PG-13) that were smokefree doubled from 2002 to 2014 (from 32% to 64%). But in youth-rated movies that showed any smoking, the average number of tobacco incidents per movie also nearly doubled (from 21 to 38) over the same period.
  • TheMotion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the studios' organization that assigns ratings, provides a "smoking label" along with the regular rating for some movies that contain smoking. However, almost 9 of every 10 (88%) youth-rated, top-grossing movies with smoking do not carry an MPAA "smoking label."
  • The 2012 Surgeon General’s Report (Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults) concluded that an industrywide standard to rate movies with tobacco incidents R could result in reductions in youth smoking.
  • Giving an R rating to future movies with smoking would be expected to reduce the number of teen smokers by nearly 1 in 5 (18%) and prevent 1 million deaths from smoking among children alive today.

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