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Support for tobacco control interventions: do country of origin and socioeconomic status make a difference?

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Public Health

Abstract

Objective

To examine the attitudes to various tobacco control regulations among smokers from four different countries and explore differences by country and socioeconomic status.

Methods

Questions relating to tobacco regulation were asked of adult smokers from the 2007–2008 International Tobacco Control Four Country Survey (ITC4). Measures included attitudes to tobacco industry and product regulation, and measures of socioeconomic status and economic disadvantage.

Results

Overall smokers supported greater regulation of the tobacco industry with least supportive US smokers and most supportive Australian smokers. Reporting smoking-related deprivation and a lower income was independently associated with increased support for regulation of the tobacco industry (both p ≤ 0.01).

Conclusions

Policy-makers interested in doing more to control tobacco should be reassured that, for the most part, they have the support of smokers, with greatest support in countries with the strongest regulations. Smokers economically disadvantaged by smoking were more supportive of government policies to regulate the tobacco industry suggesting that reactance against regulation is not likely to differentially contribute to lower cessation rates in this group.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank members of the Data Management Core at the University of Waterloo for assistance in preparing the data for this analysis. The ITC Four-Country Survey is supported by multiple grants including R01 CA 100362 and P50 CA111236 (Roswell Park Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center) and also in part from grant P01 CA138389 (Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York), all funded by the National Cancer Institute of the United States, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (045734), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (57897, 79551), National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (265903, 450110, APP1005922), Cancer Research UK (C312/A3726), Canadian Tobacco Control Research Initiative (014578); Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation, National Cancer Institute of Canada/Canadian Cancer Society.

Conflict of interest

None.

Ethical approval

The study has received ethical approval from the relevant institutional review or research ethics committee at The Cancer Council Victoria (Australia), Roswell Park Cancer Institute (USA), University of Waterloo (Canada), and University of Strathclyde (UK).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Karen Moore

  2. VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control, The Cancer Council Victoria, 100 Drummond St, Carlton, Australia

    Ron Borland & Hua-Hie Yong

  3. Department of Health Promotion, Social and Behavioral Health, College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, USA

    Mohammad Siahpush

  4. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA

    K. Michael Cummings

  5. Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    James F. Thrasher

  6. Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Geoffrey T. Fong

Authors
  1. Karen Moore
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  2. Ron Borland
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  3. Hua-Hie Yong
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  4. Mohammad Siahpush
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  5. K. Michael Cummings
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  6. James F. Thrasher
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  7. Geoffrey T. Fong
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ron Borland.

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Moore, K., Borland, R., Yong, HH. et al. Support for tobacco control interventions: do country of origin and socioeconomic status make a difference?. Int J Public Health 57, 777–786 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-012-0378-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-012-0378-5

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