This paper analyzes the outcomes of the truth® anti-smoking campaign, describing their research methodology, findings, and implications.
In early 2000, the American Legacy Foundation launched the national truth® campaign, the first national anti-smoking campaign to discourage tobacco use among youths. In this paper, the authors report on their study of the impact of the campaign on national smoking rates among U.S. youths in eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades. The authors describe their methodology, which involved using data from the Monitoring the Future survey in a pre/post quasi-experimental design to relate trends in youth smoking prevalence to varied doses of the truth® campaign in a national sample of approximately 50,000 students in grades eight, ten, and twelve, surveyed each spring from 1997 through 2002. Findings indicate that the campaign accounted for a significant portion of the recent decline in youth smoking prevalence. We found that smoking prevalence among all students declined from 25.3 percent to 18.0 percent between 1999 and 2002 and that the campaign accounted for approximately 22 percent of this decline. This study showed that the campaign was associated with substantial declines in youth smoking and has accelerated recent declines in youth smoking prevalence. Publisher Abstract Provided