Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Nov 5:12:E191.
doi: 10.5888/pcd12.150157.

The Dose-Response Relationship Between Tobacco Education Advertising and Calls to Quitlines in the United States, March-June, 2012

Kevin C Davis  1 , Robert L Alexander Jr  2 , Paul Shafer  3 , Nathan Mann  3 , Ann Malarcher  2 , Lei Zhang  2
Affiliations

The Dose-Response Relationship Between Tobacco Education Advertising and Calls to Quitlines in the United States, March-June, 2012

Kevin C Davis et al. Prev Chronic Dis. .

Abstract

Introduction: We estimated changes in call volume in the United States in response to increases in advertising doses of the Tips From Former Smokers (Tips) campaign, the first federal national tobacco education campaign, which aired for 12 weeks from March 19 to June 10, 2012. We also measured the effectiveness of ad taglines that promoted calls directly with a quitline number (1-800-QUIT-NOW) and indirectly with a cessation help website (Smokefree.gov).

Methods: Multivariate regressions estimated the weekly number of calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW by area code as a function of weekly market-level gross rating points (GRPs) from CDC's Tips campaign in 2012. The number of quitline calls attributable solely to Tips was predicted.

Results: For quitline-tagged ads, an additional 100 television GRPs per week was associated with an increase of 89 calls per week in a typical area code in the United States (P < .001). The same unit increase in advertising GRPs for ads tagged with Smokefree.gov was associated with an increase of 29 calls per week in any given area code (P < .001). We estimated that the Tips campaign was responsible for more than 170,000 additional calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW during the campaign and that it would have generated approximately 140,000 additional calls if all ads were tagged with 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

Conclusion: For campaign planners, these results make it possible to estimate 1) the likely impact of tobacco prevention media buys and 2) the additional quitline capacity needed at the national level should future campaigns of similar scale use 1-800-QUIT-NOW taglines exclusively.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure
Figure
Weekly total calls to 1–800-QUIT-NOW and total population-weighted Tips campaign television and radio GRPs, February 4–July 8, 2012. Abbreviations: DMA, designated market area; GRP, gross rating point. [Table: see text]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Best practices in comprehensive tobacco control programs — 2014. Atlanta (GA): US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014.
    1. 2008 PHS Guideline Update Panel, Liaisons, and Staff. Treating tobacco use and dependence: 2008 update U.S. Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guideline executive summary. Respir Care 2008;53(9):1217–22. - PubMed
    1. Anderson CM, Zhu SH. Tobacco quitlines: looking back and looking ahead. Tob Control 2007;16(Suppl 1):i81–6. 10.1136/tc.2007.020701 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cummins SE, Bailey L, Campbell S, Koon-Kirby C, Zhu SH. Tobacco cessation quitlines in North America: a descriptive study. Tob Control 2007;16(Suppl 1):i9–15. 10.1136/tc.2007.020370 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. North American Quitline Consortium. Measuring reach of quitline programs. Phoenix (AZ): NAQC Issue Paper, 2009.

Publication types