build and muscularity.27 In general our results accord with observations from the United States of a clustering of negative health habits among smokers, which may have become more pronounced in recent years.8 We can only speculate why the characteristics of smokers in Finland seem to be changing. In the past smoking was considered to be a "normal" habit; but with the Finnish antismoking legisla...

BACKGROUND Although parental smoking is clearly one important influence on children's smoking, it is still unclear what are the many mechanisms by which parents influence their children's smoking. Antismoking actions are one potential mechanism. OBJECTIVE To determine whether parental antismoking actions including having rules about smoking in one's home, using nonsmoking sections of public e...

A tobacco-free hospital environment sends an important signal to patients and visitors with regard to both safety and a healthy lifestyle. Today patients, staff and visitors increasingly expect an antismoking policy to be in place in hospitals and other venues where sick people are treated. Health care staff can play an important role in the implementation of an antismoking policy in their hosp...

This paper describes adult women's knowledge of the leading causes of cancer mortality among women. Exposure to antismoking advertisements or media messages also is examined as a potentially effective mechanism for changing inaccurate beliefs. We used data from the 2002 and 2003 American Smoking and Health Survey (ASHES), a national telephone survey of adults, to measure women's knowledge about...

OBJECTIVE Social marketing is commonly proposed to counteract advertising and other messages that promote unhealthy products. However, public service campaigns can also 'boomerang' or ironically increase the unhealthy behaviours they are designed to discourage. The present study examined whether antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) could increase smoking behaviour immediately followi...

This study tested associations between general parenting dimensions, antismoking socialization practices, and parental smoking status on the one hand and adolescent smoking on the other. These associations were examined within asthmatic adolescents, a group particularly vulnerable to the effects of smoking. Participants were 9,008 young adolescents (aged 11-16 years) from the Netherlands. Assoc...

This study explored parental beliefs and behaviors designed to convey an antismoking message across levels of self-reported parent and adolescent smoking behavior. Parental self-efficacy, beliefs about smoking, the family relationship, antismoking messages, reactions to smoking, and household smoking rules were explored. Participants were 345 6th, 8th, and 10th graders (50% female; 93% White) a...

The authors tested whether smokers would use cigarette pack covers illustrated with antismoking messages. In 2001, visitors to a smoking cessation Web site ordered cigarette pack covers and answered a follow-up questionnaire 52 days later. Participants received by mail cardboard boxes designed to contain cigarette packs and illustrated with antismoking messages. Participants were 393 smokers li...