Cytological screening for cervical cancer (the Pap smear), the first attempt at mass screening for a human malignancy, is often presented as a non-problematic demonstration of the feasibility of such screening. Screening for this tumor became a model for screening for other malignancies: breast, colon and prostate. My text follows the early history of the Pap smear and the conditions that led t...

OBJECTIVE This article categorizes and describes current media campaigns to reduce college student drinking, reviews key principles of campaign design and outlines recommendations for future campaigns. METHOD The article describes three types of media campaigns on student drinking: information, social norms marketing, and advocacy. Key principles of campaign design are derived from work in co...

AIM To evaluate the impact on smokers' behavior of public health activity related to a religious event such as Lent in a predominantly Roman Catholic country. METHODS "Smoke out day" was organized on the first day of Lent, a period of self-denial for Roman Catholics, combining cultural and religious significance for Croatian people. The day was covered by a massive media campaign. Smoking beh...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of a telephone helpline (Quitline) with additional support (written information) on callers who use the service during a mass media campaign. DESIGN Telephone recall surveys of callers to the helpline carried out two months and one year after their initial call. SETTING Telephone helpline. SUBJECTS Callers to the helpline. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Smoking b...

BACKGROUND Barriers to high blood pressure (BP) awareness and control are exacerbated by poor knowledge of the consequences and uncertainty regarding how to and who should direct care. We developed a social marketing hypertension awareness program to determine baseline awareness, knowledge, and treatment behavior, and then studied the impact of a targeted, media intervention among randomly surv...

Objective—To describe the extent to which comprehensive statewide tobacco control programmes in the USA have made progress toward reducing teenage smoking. Data sources—Literature search of Medline for reviews of eVectiveness of programme and policy elements, plus journal articles and personal request for copies of publicly released reports and working papers from evaluation staV in each of the...

A 2013-2014 media campaign in Sindh Province, Pakistan, promoted healthy breastfeeding practices. According to data from annual household surveys, 26.7% of mothers saw one television spot and 19.4% saw another. The proportion of mothers who received breastfeeding information via television increased from 8.3% to 29.4% after the campaign (p≤0.05) and the percentage receiving information from doc...

This paper examines the successful fight against the provision in Section 377 of the Penal Code of India that criminalised private consensual sex between adults of the same sex. This law had led to serious discrimination against people engaging in homosexual acts, who were subjected to frequent beatings and blackmail attempts by police, who used the threat of prosecution against them. NGOs work...

OBJECTIVE To describe the extent to which comprehensive statewide tobacco control programmes in the USA have made progress toward reducing teenage smoking. DATA SOURCES Literature search of Medline for reviews of effectiveness of programme and policy elements, plus journal articles and personal request for copies of publicly released reports and working papers from evaluation staff in each of...

Insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) are an essential tool of the Roll Back Malaria strategy. An increasing number of African countries have embarked on mass distribution campaigns of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) with the ultimate goal of universal coverage. Such a national campaign with the goal of one ITN for every two people has been conducted in Burkina Faso in 2010. Ou...