Pictorial warnings on cigarette packs:

Bigger the Better

Rasika SOMARATHNA

Commenting on efforts to introduce pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs, experts said yesterday the effectiveness will depend upon the size and the position of the warning message. Cancer Care Association president and National Cancer Hospital medical officer Dr Samadhi Rajapaksa said the effectiveness of warning labels has been shown to increase with the size of the warnings.

“The bigger they are, the more likely they are to be noticed by both smokers and non – smokers,” he said.

Dr Rajapaksa said a recent experimental research study conducted in Canada found that increasing the size of pictorial warnings from the current size of 50 percent of the principal display area to 75 percent, 90 percent and 100 percent enhanced their impact among adult smokers, youth smokers, as well as vulnerable youth non-smokers.

Another study in Australia, where pictorial warnings cover 90 percent of the front and 30 percent of the back of packs, also found that the effectiveness of warnings could be improved by increasing the size of the warnings further, he said.

Citing a World Health Organization survey, Dr Rajapaksa pointed out that in countries with large pictorial warnings such as Thailand, Australia and Uruguay more than 85 percent of non - smokers cited packages as a source of health information.

“For example, 86 percent of non-smokers in Canada agreed in a national survey that the warnings on packs provide them with important health information,” he said.

Dr Rajapaksa said the WHO identified and recommended comprehensive health warnings on packs, among the six key measures required to address the global tobacco epidemic which kills one human every six seconds.

In Sri Lanka, organisations behind the anti-tobacco drive and health officials have been urging for the inclusion of pictorial health warnings covering at least 80 percent of the pack. They say that as one of the first signatories to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world’s first global public health treaty, Sri Lanka is obliged to include pictorial warnings on packaging to educate smokers on the health hazards of smoking.