(April 18, 2016, Beijing, China, and New York, USA) – China Center of Health Education (CCHE) and the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) today launched a new national mass media campaign that encourages citizens to think about the harms of tobacco use and secondhand smoke (SHS), support smokefree laws and quit smoking. This powerful campaign features a public service announcement (PSA) called “Child” that graphically illustrates the harm smoking causes to smokers and the impact it has on their loved ones, particularly children. The PSA will be broadcast on national TV channels and distributed via social media for a period of four (4) weeks. The campaign was developed and implemented by CCHE and NHFPC, with technical and financial support from Vital Strategies (formerly World Lung Foundation).
Judith Mackay, Senior Advisor for Tobacco Control, Vital Strategies, commented: “Tobacco kills more than 1.3 million people in China every year, and sickens and disables many more. A significant number are people with family responsibilities, whose sickness and deaths represent an emotional and economic loss to their loved ones. “Child” has an important role to play in increasing awareness of the harms of smoking and secondhand smoke to smokers, their friends, work colleagues and families. We congratulate the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the China Center of Health Education on the launch of this powerful campaign.
“Alongside other policy interventions, mass media campaigns can encourage population-level behavior change. In China, this could ultimately save millions of lives and reduce costly increases in the incidence of non-communicable diseases like cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease and cardiovascular diseases. Beijing’s comprehensive smokefree law set a good precedent for the national smokefree law currently under review by the State Council; “Child” will help to build more public support for this law as well as encouraging smokers to quit. We are delighted to have supported this campaign and encourage CCHE and the NHFPC to continue to educate China’s people on the harms of tobacco,” concluded Mackay.
About “Child”
This 30-second PSA appeals to the importance of family among Chinese people. It opens with a father arriving home from work to greet his young daughter, while surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke. He is shown smoking in the workplace beside colleagues, smoking – and coughing – in a restaurant while sitting with his wife and daughter and, finally, smoking at home. His daughter watches a TV programme on the harms of tobacco use and gives her father a concerned look when she hears him cough. The father realizes the harm he is doing to himself and the harm and worry he is causing his daughter, and resolves to quit smoking. The PSA will run on China Central Television (CCTV) until May 13th 2016 and will be shared on social media channels including weibo, wechat and video-sharing websites from this week for a period of four weeks.
A research study in Beijing evaluated the effectiveness of “Child”. Both smokers and non-smokers said they found it easy to understand and personally relevant. Almost all participants agreed that it made them more concerned about smoking around children or others smoking around children. Non-smokers said it would motivate them to “discourage others from smoking inside my home.” Critically, more than half of smokers agreed that “Child” would encourage them to try to quit smoking. “Child” builds upon “Say No to Secondhand Smoke”, which showed how SHS harms innocent victims; “Invisible Killer-Hospital”, which drew attention to China’s ban on smoking in healthcare facilities; and “Invisible Killer- Office”, which highlighted that exposure to SHS increases the risk of heart disease by 25 percent.
The burden of tobacco use in China
The Tobacco Atlas notes that more than 275,900,000 adults and more than 8,937,000 children continue to use tobacco each day in China. This includes 45.3 percent of men, 2.1 percent of women, 18 percent of boys and 0.5 percent of girls. Every year, more than 1,384,200 of China’s people are killed by tobacco-caused disease. Tobacco is responsible for 19.5 percent of adult male deaths and 11.9 percent of adult female deaths – more than the average in other middle-income countries. This suggests that women in China suffer a disproportionate burden of death and disease from exposure to SHS.
A report from World Health Organization (WHO), the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC Project) and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that 740 million non-smokers in China – including 182 million children – are exposed to SHS at least once a day, causing approximately 100,000 deaths every year. According to The Tobacco Atlas, SHS increases the risks of contracting lung cancer by 30 percent (small cell lung cancer by 300 percent) and coronary heart disease by 25 percent. Exposure to SHS killed more than 600,000 non-smokers globally in 2010 from causes of death including ischemic heart disease, lower respiratory infections, asthma, and lung cancers.
A paper in The Lancet revealed that smoking initiation among men in China is happening at a younger age and that smokers continue to smoke for longer compared with previous generations, increasing their risk of disease and premature death. Unless significant advances are made in reducing tobacco use, the study predicts that one in three of all young men in China will eventually die from tobacco use, and smoking-related premature death – from conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, stroke and heart disease – will claim two million lives every year by 2030.
Research has shown that mass media campaigns and graphic health warnings on tobacco packs are one of the most effective means to prompt people to stop smoking. They are one of the World Health Organization’s M-P-O-W-E-R (W=Warn) strategies to reduce tobacco consumption. M-P-O-W-E-R strategies are endorsed and promoted by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, of which Vital Strategies is a principal partner.
The “Child” PSA and stills and transcripts from the PSA are available upon request.
About Vital Strategies
Vital Strategies envisions a world where every person is protected by a strong public health system. Our team combines evidence-based strategies with innovation to help develop sound public health policies, manage programs efficiently, strengthen data systems, conduct research, and design strategic communication campaigns for policy and behavior change. Vital Strategies was formed when The Union North America and World Lung Foundation joined forces. It is an affiliate of The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).
To find out more, please visit vitalstrategies.org or Twitter @VitalStrat
For further information or to arrange an interview with a Vital Strategies public health and tobacco control expert, please contact Tracey Johnston, Vital Strategies, at +44.7889.081.170 or tjohnston@vitalstrategies.org