Tobacco Industry Branding Strategies and Its Influence on Young Adults

Every year, tobacco industries are spending millions of dollars targeting youths and non-smokers with tactful advertisements and promotion, which has impact on early initiation, increasing overall smoking rate and further upsurge the disease and early death. The study aimed to explore the tobacco industry's branding strategies that influences youth to early initiation of tobacco in Bangladesh. This study was a cross-sectional design with mixed method approach and implemented during March - December 2019. Survey was conducted using semi-structured questionnaire through face-to-face interview among 208 students in different educational institutions of the selected areas of Dhaka city as well as twenty-five (25) KIIs were conducted with different experts personnel. Descriptive and inferential analysis were performed for quantitative data. Thematic analysis was done for qualitative data. Among student respondents, 71.0% were smokers and their average age of initiation was 13.8 years. Study revealed that 21% students attended or exposed to different types of tobacco industry's (TI) promotional programs including one-to-one/group campaign (61%), corporate programs (23%), seminar (21%), career counseling (21%) and sports event (2%). Among them, 70.0% students received free promotional items, such as T-shirt, lighter, cap, wrist belt, free cigarette, etc. at these programs and 65% students were interested in the motivational speech given by the TI representatives. Three-fourths (75%) were familiar with misleading branding terms such as light, tar, full flavor, filter and menthol. The initiation age of the smoking was associated with observing the arrangement of the smoking product in the retail shop (p <0.05), attracted to cigarette stick and packet color (p<0.05) and attracted to smell/flavor (p<0.05) and attracted to role model/celebrity's smoking (p<0.05). Among retailers, 59.3% received TI assistance including showcase decoration with brand color, receiving model box and mounting board. Besides, 59.3% retailers mentioned promoting new brands to the non-user including students through promotional campaign, convince/persuasion, giving free samples, etc. TI is undertaking aggressive marketing and promoting brands targeting the youth around educational institutions that are ultimately contributing to early smoking initiation. A Strong monitoring system should be in place to stop direct and indirect branding and promotional activities.

Effectiveness of social and behavioral change communication intervention to promote the use of 7.1% chlorhexidine for umbilical cord care in hard-to-reach rural Bangladesh: A mixed method study

Background

Developing countries account for 99.0% of the 2.7 million neonatal deaths occurring worldwide each year. Umbilical cord infection contributes greatly to this predicament, but evidence shows that 7.1% chlorhexidine solution (CHX) can substantially reduce the risk of infection. To address this challenge, this study aimed to determine the effect of a social and behavioral change communication (SBCC) intervention on promoting the use of WHO recommended CHX as well as on improving the knowledge, attitude, and practices of rural communities regarding umbilical cord care in hard-to-reach areas of Bangladesh.

Methods

A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted in two unions of Jamalpur district during 2017-2019 among 748 pregnant women in their third trimester. The SBCC intervention was implemented through town-hall meetings (n = 3), community meetings (n = 30), and door-to-door meetings (n = 22 223) in Dangdhora union, which served as the intervention group, while Hativanga union was kept as a real-time comparator group. Qualitative data were collected from a total of 200 respondents, where 100 participants were chosen from both intervention and control groups. Statistical analysis was carried out in R and outcomes with P values less than 0.05 at 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were presented.

Results

Following SBCC intervention, significant (P < 0.001) improvements were observed in the intervention group with regards to the primary objective: CHX use increased from 1.07% to 57.80%, while CHX use decreased from 1.6% to 0.0% in the control group. Meaningful improvements were also observed in relation to knowledge (29.0% to 43.0%), attitude (53.0% to 90.0%), and practices (25.0% to 70.0%) of rural communities regarding cord care. Marked improvements were also observed in the intervention group related to understanding causes of cord infections; importance of cord cleanliness; use of antiseptic and other preventive measures; care-seeking behavior; and ensuring hygienic childbirth.

Conclusions

This pioneer study revealed that SBCC interventions led to an increase in CHX use and improved the knowledge, attitude and practices of Bangladeshi communities regarding cord care and cord infection. This indicates that SBCC intervention is indeed an effective and feasible method for reducing infant mortality rates in hard-to-reach populations and achieving SDG goal 3.2.