Sunil Kumar Raina
Background: Warning labels on tobacco products are considered effective to make the people aware of the consequences of tobacco use, and to bring about a behavioral change like quitting and reducing tobacco use.
Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the town of Kangra in Himachal Pradesh using a house to house survey (using Krish grid framework) to assess the effectiveness of the warnings on tobacco products with help of a questionnaire earlier used in the GATS India survey, 2010.
Results: Amongst the 98% of smokers who had seen the advertisement, 64% of males had thought about quitting whereas among females 100% of smokers contemplated quitting on noticing the warnings. This association, however, was not found to be statistically significant. Sensitivity towards the warnings was higher among those above 70 years of age with 66% of the smokers contemplating quitting after seeing the warnings and among those between 10-29 years of age, 52% of the smokers thought about quitting after seeing the warnings. This again was not found to be statistically significant. Among smokeless tobacco users too only 63.9% male users thought about quitting after seeing the warnings whereas 100% female users thought about quitting after seeing the warnings.
Conclusion: The effectiveness of warnings can be enhanced by making the warnings bigger, clearer with visible color contrast and easily interpretable so that the 35% population who do not contemplate quitting after seeing these warnings are also reached out.
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