Year: 2000
Type: editorial
Abstract: For 14 years STAT (Stop Teenage Addiction to Tobacco) has championed a supply side approach to tobacco use prevention, based upon a hypothesis that fewer youths will use tobacco if they cannot obtain it from retailers .1 There are now a handful of studies that support this hypothesis. The village of Woodridge, Illinois maintained a 50% reduction in youth tobacco use over a five year period while the USA as a whole experienced a sharp increase in teen smoking.2 Reduced use of tobacco by youths has also been reported in communities in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington in response to enforcement efforts.3-6 I believe the supply side approach can work if it is done right.
When properly stated, the supply side hypothesis can be proved false by demonstrating: (1) that the intervention under study prevented youths from obtaining tobacco from retailers; (2) that youths were deprived of this source of tobacco for a period of time long enough for it to impact their tobacco use; and (3) that tobacco use rates failed to decline. The review by Stead and Lancaster in this issue of Tobacco Control does not properly state the supply side hypothesis and does not evaluate whether studies meet these three criteria.7
To Stead and Lancaster, the inclusion of a control group is the …
Source: Tobacco Control
DOI: 10.1136/tc.9.2.120
Author: J. R DIFRANZA
Institution: University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
Language: English
Subfield: Physiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2013138688