USC Research Suggests Graphic Labels Are Key To Quitting Smoking

New research shows that the key to quitting smoking might not be in a patch or gum, but in your eyes.

A soon to be published study by University of South Carolina public health professor Jim Thrasher shows that warning labels with images help smokers quit, and the more graphic the visual, more people kick the habit.

Canada was the first to introduce the tactic in 2001.

The FDA was poised to require cigarette companies to put graphic warnings on the upper half of cigarette packs starting next September, but in November a U.S. district court judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that the policy infringed on first amendment rights. The FDA immediately appealed, and many expect it to reach the Supreme Court.

Those against it say the stomach-turning images are a scare tactic that goes beyond the government and industry’s responsibility to give consumers facts, and instead aims to change their behavior. The judge’s ruling echoed some of the arguments made by cigarette companies that sued the FDA in August.

Currently only an eight-word warning appears on the side of cigarette packaging, warning of carbon monoxide.

If the FDA succeeds in implementing the regulation it will be the first time the warning label has changed in 25 years.

 According to the CDC one in five deaths in America are the result of smoking related illness, totaling more than 443,000 a year.

Thrasher said that text is just not enough to stem on of America’s biggest public health issues.

“Those messages that are text only have been shown repeatedly to not work as well as amongst people who are less educated, amongst people who don’t have high levels of health literacy and unfortunately those are the populations where smoking is more and more concentrated. So my fear is that if we go down this road where we leave behind the emotional element of the messaging that we’re also going to leave behind that segment of the population which is really, really important.”

He also said that Americans are far behind other Western nations when it comes to understanding the health risks of smoking.

Thrasher and his colleagues have conducted research around the world, from Germany to China and most recently in Mexico, where cigarette companies are required to put images depicting the results of smoking.

“In Mexico, we interview smokers both before and after they put pictures on cigarette packs, and we saw substantial increases in their knowledge about the toxins in cigarettes, increases in knowledge about health risks, and increased awareness of cessation services. Those are important gains, that make the labels worth it,” Thrasher said.

What’s more is that former smokers frequently said the images stopped them from picking up a pack again and even said the images should be even more aggressive.

Images used include charred, diseased lungs, cancerous mouths with missing pieces of flesh, people bed-ridden on ventilators and even a fetus impacted by a smoking mother-to-be.

Thrasher said the visuals bring out the emotional side of communicating risk and help smokers understand the risk in a real, meaningful way, instead of in the abstract.

For smoking cessation help call 1-800-QUIT-NOW (784-8669) in South Carolina.