Contacts:
Jean Forster, associate professor of epidemiology, (612) 626-8864, [email protected]
Teri Charest, media relations manager, Academic Health Center, (612) 624-4604, [email protected]
Sound bites with Forster are available on the Newsline at (612) 625-6666. For a list of contacts in intervention communities, call Teri Charest at (612) 624-4604.
U OF MINNESOTA STUDY SHOWS TOUGH LOCAL LAWS CAN CURB TEEN SMOKING
Citizens who make a concerted effort to restrict teenagers' access to tobacco can significantly influence youth smoking rates in their community, according to a University of Minnesota study that will be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
The research team, led by Jean Forster, an associate professor in the School of Public Health, studied 14 Minnesota communities assigned at random to intervention or control conditions. The seven intervention communities enacted ordinances aimed at curbing teen access to tobacco by penalizing purchasers, increasing the vendor license fee, creating vendor and clerk penalties for sales to minors, banning cigarette vending machines, placing cigarettes behind counters, promoting age-of-sale laws in store windows and/or requiring compliance checks.
Forster's team surveyed more than 6,000 teens in grades eight through 10 before the program began (1993) and after ordinances were enacted (1996). While the rate of teen smoking increased overall in the intervention and control groups, the increase in the intervention communities was significantly less than in the control communities.
The percentage of daily smokers in the intervention communities increased by 1.7 (from 11.6 to 13.3 percent), compared to 6.6 in control communities (from 10.6 to 17.2 percent). The percentage of weekly smokers in the intervention communities increased by 2 (from 15.5 to 17.5 percent), while weekly smoking in the control communities increased by 7.6 (from 14 to 21.6 percent). The percentage of monthly smokers in the intervention communities rose by 3 (from 21.8 to 24.8 percent), while in the control communities it rose by 9.7 (from 20.1 to 29.8 percent). Teens in the intervention communities also reported that they had a harder time purchasing cigarettes and made fewer purchase attempts following the intervention.
The seven intervention communities were Benson, Crookston, Fergus Falls, Litchfield, Montevideo, St. Peter and Waseca. Each city had a community organizer who mobilized a task force of 8 to 15 members. The task forces developed and proposed the ordinances that their city councils passed, and mobilized community support for their adoption.
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