Public Health Literature Review: Mass Media & Youth Smoking Reduction

This literature review investigates the efficacy of mass media interventions in reducing smoking among young people. The review addresses the increasing prevalence of smoking among youngsters, the associated health risks, and the importance of targeted interventions. Utilizing the PICO framework, the study examines existing research, including a Cochrane Database review, to assess the effectiveness of mass media campaigns. Key findings indicate that while mass media interventions show some promise, their impact on young people's smoking behavior is often limited. The author recommends integrating social media into smoking prevention campaigns to enhance their reach and effectiveness. The review highlights the need for innovative strategies to combat youth smoking and improve public health outcomes.

HEALTH PROMOTION
AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Literature Review Question
Literature review Question: Are mass media interventions effective at reducing smoking in
youngsters?

Mass media Intervention
 Mass media are channels of communication such as television, newspaper, radio and
many more.
 Mass media interventions are those interventions that can be used for delivering
preventive health messages (Bala, Strzeszynski and Topor‐Madry, 2017).
 These interventions are quite effective as they have potential to reach large target and
bring changes within attitude or behaviour, modify knowledge of the large targeted
population.
 Effective mass media is one of the best intervention that can be used on preventing
smoking in youngsters.

Importance of literature review question
 Literature review question is quite important to be focused on for youngster’s health
because of various reasons.
 First of all, smoking within young people is increasing drastically. Many of them are
addicted to Smoking, many of them smoke for showing off and there are many more
reasons because of which smoking among young people is increasing drastically.
 This literature review question is important to be focused on as because of smoking
there are various kinds of chronic health issues are increasing among youngsters, such
as: due to excessive smoking lungs diseases, cancer etc. are increasing among
youngsters.

PICO framework
 PICO process is a mnemonic process which is most commonly used for evidence based
practises in order to frame and answer health or clinical create related questions (Saaiq
and Ashraf, 2017).
 This framework is also used to develop literature search strategies for intense
systematic reviews. Other than this, PICO is also used to breakdown literature question
in order to develop search keywords.
Literature
review Question
Problem or
patient
Intervention Comparison Outcome
Are mass media
interventions
effective at
reducing
smoking in
youngsters?
Youngsters who
smoke quite
frequently
Mass media
interventions
No comparison Reduction of
smoking in
Young people.

Search Strategy Summary discussion
Search strategy used was Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group Specialized Register.
Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group helped in suggesting interventions to help youngsters
to be included in the register.

Summary discussion of the article
 Main Aim of research study is mass media interventions for smoking in young People.
Objective of the research study is “To assess the effectiveness of mass media
interventions in reducing smoking among Youngsters.”
 It was a qualitative narrative type of study and this study was done in 2017 (Carson‐
Chahhoud and et al., 2017).
 Participants: young people under the age of 25 years with smoking behaviour were the
main participants
 How information was gathered: two Authors independently extracted information for
the study. Risk of bias for each study was accessed using Cochrane risk bias tools.

Continue…
 Key findings: Author found that most mass media intervention help in reducing
smoking behaviour among youngster but at a certain lower level.
 Author’s conclusion and recommendations: Author found that effect of mass media
campaigns on young people’s smoking behavior was quite lower. Author recommended
that usage of social media among youngsters is quite high So mixing social media and
smoking prevention campaign can help in increasing effectivity of this campaign.

References
 Bala, M.M., Strzeszynski, L. and Topor‐Madry, R., 2017. Mass media interventions for
smoking cessation in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. (11).
 Carson‐Chahhoud, K.V., and et al., 2017. Mass media interventions for preventing
smoking in young people. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. (6).
 Saaiq, M. and Ashraf, B., 2017. Modifying “Pico” Question into “Picos” Model for
More Robust and Reproducible Presentation of the Methodology Employed in A
Scientific Study. World journal of plastic surgery. 6(3). p.390.

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