For Immediate Release (January 7, 1999)
Wake Forest Professor To Evaluate Campaign Against Smokeless Tobacco
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- For more than a decade, broadcaster and former baseball player Joe Garagiola has been among the leaders of a national campaign against smokeless tobacco -- which is chewed by hundreds of baseball players.
In 1996, he and others won funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a campaign -- called the National Spit Tobacco Education Program, choosing the name "spit tobacco" rather than "smokeless tobacco" or "chewing tobacco" or "snuff" to emphasize the dangers.
Six major league teams have conducted outreach campaigns in their communities, and baseball itself has targeted players and trainers for education during spring training about spit tobacco use.
Now the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded $140,860 to the Wake Forest University School of Medicine to assess the National Spit Tobacco Education Program. David G. Altman, Ph.D., professor of public health sciences (social sciences and health policy), will direct the assessment.
"We intend to provide the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation staff with an honest appraisal of the National Spit Tobacco Education Program," said Altman. "We will qualitatively analyze the program with the goal of providing some perspective on its influence on Major League Baseball and its partners."
Altman and his colleagues will provide the foundation "with a sense for the overall return on Robert Wood Johnson Foundation investment."
According to a 1998 foundation report, in the late '70s, the tobacco industry mounted a campaign to "change attitudes toward its products while ramping up efforts to reach a more youthful audience. The industry, which used celebrity baseball players as models in its advertisements, attempted to convey a message that smokeless was synonymous with harmless. The marketing strategy was successful. Sales of moist snuff -- commonly referred to as "dip" -- rose by 55 percent between 1978 and 1985."
Among the questions that Altman will investigate are these: -- In what ways did the National Spit Tobacco Education program impact major league baseball, tobacco control programs, and the public at large? -- What were the major achievements of the program during its first three years? Did this investment make a difference in the big picture? -- How can the National Spit Tobacco Education Program help Major League Baseball sustain the program in the future? -- What should the foundation do next with respect to the initiative?
Altman and his group will study local community outreach and education by such teams as the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers.
They also will look at the public education campaign, at spring training instruction, at initiatives undertaken by the office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball and the Baseball Players Association, such as mouth exams completed during physicals, and at community initiatives stimulated by this program.
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Media Contact: Robert Conn ([email protected]), Jim Steele or Mark Wright at (336) 716-4587.
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