Exposure of black youths to cigarette advertising in magazines

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the potential exposure of black adolescents to brand specific advertising in magazines.

Design: A probit regression analysis was conducted of pooled 1990 and 1994 data on brand specific advertising in 36 popular US magazines to examine the relationship between the presence or absence of advertising in each magazine for each of 12 cigarette brands, and the proportion of each magazine's youth (ages 12-17 years) readers who were black.

Main outcome measures: The presence or absence of advertising in each magazine in 1990 and 1994, for each of 12 cigarette brands.

Results: After controlling for total magazine readership and the percentage of young adult, Hispanic, and female readers, black youth cigarette brands (those whose market share among black youths exceeded their overall market share) were more likely than other brands to advertise in magazines with a higher percentage of black youth readers. Holding all other variables constant at their sample means, the probability of a non-black youth brand advertising in a magazine decreased over the observed range of percentage black youth readership from 0.65 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.55 to 0.75) for magazines with 5% black youth readers to 0.33 (95% CI 0.00 to 0.69) for magazines with 91% black youth readers. In contrast, the probability of a black youth brand advertising in a magazine increased from 0.40 (95% CI 0.17 to 0.62) at 5% black youth readership to 1.00 (95% CI 0.97 to 1.00) at 91% black youth readership.

Conclusions: Black youths are more likely than white youths to be exposed to magazine advertising by cigarette brands popular among black adolescents.