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New Cigarette Pack Warning Resource Enables Governments to Fulfill Key Health Treaty Obligation

(New York, USA) - On World No Tobacco Day, World Lung Foundation launches a new web resource for governments, NGOs and advocates planning to implement pictorial warnings on cigarette packs. The Tobacco Control Pack Warning Resource provides access to 47 effective, license-free images from 8 countries. Government health officials can review information about each image, including the country of origin, licensing details and research available related to effectiveness. Images are categorized by health harms such as stroke, lung cancer and heart disease, secondhand smoke, cessation and addiction.

The website emphasizes hard-hitting images that graphically depict the negative consequences of smoking. Such images have been shown to be more effective in prompting smokers to try to quit. It also provides guidance on pre-testing and what messages have been shown through research to be ineffective.

Evidence shows that graphic images are highly effective at promoting quitting.

Smokers see the images on cigarette packs on average 15 times per day, which adds up to 5,500 times per year. This frequency and proximity of exposure makes the pack a highly effective channel to inform smokers about the dangers of tobacco. It also provides a critical buffer against cigarette packaging, one of the most potent forms of tobacco promotion.

More than 170 governments are required to implement health warnings on cigarette packs as part of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a global health treaty they have ratified. Guidelines for the treaty suggest warnings should include full color pictures, cover at least 50% of the pack, include a range of rotating messages and include health information about the harms of tobacco.

“Countries that mandate large graphic pack warnings are not only fulfilling their legal obligations, they are taking a big step forward toward better informing smokers of the deadly harms of tobacco,” said Peter Baldini, Chief Executive Officer, World Lung Foundation. “The new website will help those implementing this measure by making it easy to build upon the experience of others. By offering access to this pool of easy to obtain, impactful, high-quality graphic images, we will be helping governments around the world to save time, money and lives.”

Substantial international evidence supports the effectiveness of graphic warning labels. According to the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, when Canada introduced pictorial warnings labels in 2001, 91% of smokers said they had read the warnings and 84% of smokers viewed health warning labels as a source of health information, compared with 47% of US smokers, where only text-only labels are required. In 2006 Thailand’s health warnings were enhanced to 50% of the pack plus graphic images. The percentage of smokers stating that the labels made them “a lot” more likely to quit increased from 31% to 44%.

In addition, pack warnings have been shown to prevent young people from initiating smoking and to keep those who have quit from restarting.

More information on graphic pack warnings is available through the World Health Organization. This critical intervention is one of WHO’s M-P-O-W-E-R (W=Warn) strategies to reduce tobacco consumption. MPOWER strategies are endorsed by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, of which World Lung Foundation is a principal partner.

About World Lung Foundation

World Lung Foundation was established in response to the global epidemic of lung disease, which kills 10 million people each year. The organization improves global lung health by improving local capacity to conduct research, develop public policy and deliver public health education. The organization's areas of emphasis are tobacco control, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, asthma, and child lung health. For more information, please visit worldlungfoundation.org