Exposure to tobacco advertising and smoking susceptibility among teenagers of Jiangsu Province in 2013

Objective To evaluate exposure to tobacco advertisement and its relation to smoking susceptibility among teenagers of Jiangsu Province in 2013.Methods From September to November of 2013,5 697 middle school students were selected from 14 surveillance areas using multistage stratified clustering random sampling and were investigated with self-administered questionnaires.Weight analysis was used to estimate prevalence (95%CI) of exposure to tobacco advertisement.Relationship between exposure to tobacco advertisement and smoking susceptibility was analyzed by multivariable logistic regression.Results In the past 30 days,the prevalence of exposure to tobacco advertisement was 46.7%(95%CI=44.0%-49.3%) among teenagers,boys higher than girls (48.5% vs 44.4%,P=0.04).The top 3 media channels of tobacco advertising were television (19.3%),outdoor advertising board (19.1%),and tobacco stores (17.4%).Smoking susceptibility of non-smoking teenagers with exposure to tobacco advertisement was higher than those without exposure (10.4% vs 4.9%,x2=54.6,P<0.01).Smoking susceptibility increased with the numbers of exposure sources.Teenager exposed by more than four sources of exposure has highest susceptibility in the future (OR=3.67,95%CI=2.65-5.09).Condusion Exposure to tobacco advertising is prevalent in teenagers.Exposure to tobacco advertisement increases the risk of smoking susceptibility among non-smoking teenagers.