Smoking-cessation Media Campaigns and Their Effectiveness Among Socioeconomically Advantaged and Disadvantaged Populations

Objectives: We examined whether the impact of televised smoking cessation ads differed by a population's education and income.

Methods: We used longitudinal data from the Wisconsin Behavioral Health Survey, a statewide sample of 452 adult smokers who were interviewed in 2003 to 2004 and followed up 1 year later. Logistic regression was used to assess whether baseline recall of secondhand smoke ads and "keep trying to quit" ads was associated with quit attempts and smoking abstinence at 1 year. Interaction terms were used to assess whether these associations differed by the smokers' education and income levels.

Results: Overall, neither keep-trying-to-quit nor secondhand smoke ad recall was associated with quit attempts or smoking abstinence. Keep-trying-to-quit ads were significantly more effective in promoting quit attempts among higher-versus lower-educated populations. No differences were observed for secondhand smoke ads by the smokers' education or income levels.

Conclusions: Some media campaign messages appear less effective in promoting quit attempts among less-educated populations compared with those who have more education. There is a need to develop media campaigns that are more effective with less-educated smokers.