Trial reportCancer causes & control : CCC2012
Can pictorial warning labels on cigarette packages address smoking-related health disparities? Field experiments in Mexico to assess pictorial warning label content.
Trial report in Cancer causes & control : CCC, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed.
- Tobacco package health warnings about product manipulations: an experimental study among Australian adults who smoke.Health promotion international · 2025Trial
- Differential Responses to Cigarette Package Labeling Alternatives Among Adults Who Smoke: Results From a Randomized Trial.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2024Trial
- Designing More Effective Cigar Warnings: An Experiment Among Adult Cigar Smokers.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2022Trial
- Designing Effective Testimonial Pictorial Warning Labels for Tobacco Products.Health communication · 2019Trial
- Effects of Varying Color, Imagery, and Text of Cigarette Package Warning Labels among Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Middle School Youth and Adult Smokers.Health communication · 2019Trial
- Effects of 30% and 50% Cigarette Pack Graphic Warning Labels on Visual Attention, Negative Affect, Quit Intentions, and Smoking Susceptibility among Disadvantaged Populations in the United States.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2018Trial
- Testing Cessation Messages for Cigarette Package Inserts: Findings from a Best/Worst Discrete Choice Experiment.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Trial
- Potential Effectiveness of Pictorial Warning Labels That Feature the Images and Personal Details of Real People.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2017Trial
- The role of negative affect and message credibility in perceived effectiveness of smokeless tobacco health warning labels in Navi Mumbai, India and Dhaka, Bangladesh: A moderated-mediation analysis.Addictive behaviors · 2017Trial
- Exposure to graphic warning labels on cigarette packages: Effects on implicit and explicit attitudes towards smoking among young adults.Psychology & health · 2016Trial
- Responses of young adults to graphic warning labels for cigarette packages.Tobacco control · 2015Trial
- Trial
- Cigarette warning label policy alternatives and smoking-related health disparities.American journal of preventive medicine · 2012Trial
- Applying a mixed-methods approach to evaluate and tailor electronic cigarette pictorial health warning labels for young adults in the United States.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Association of fully branded, standardized packaging and limited flavor and brand descriptors of e-liquids with interest in trying products among youths in Great Britain.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
- The Role of Harm Visibility for Pictorial Health Warning Labels on Cigars.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2025Article
- Article
- Adapting waterpipe-specific pictorial health warning labels to the Tunisian context using a mixed method approach.PloS one · 2023Article
- Strategies to enhance the effects of pictorial warnings for cigarettes: results from a discrete choice experiment.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Emotional Impact of Graphic Health Warnings on Tobacco Packaging: Analysis of Their Content.Europe's journal of psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThe objective of this study was to determine the most effective content of pictorial health warning labels (HWLs) and whether educational attainment moderates these effects.
methodsField experiments were conducted with 529 adult smokers and 530 young adults (258 nonsmokers; 271 smokers). Participants reported responses to different pictorial HWLs printed on cigarette packages. One experiment involved manipulating textual form (testimonial narrative vs. didactic) and the other involved manipulating image type (diseased organs vs. human suffering).
resultsTests of mean ratings and rankings indicated that pictorial HWLs with didactic textual forms had equivalent or significantly higher credibility, relevance, and impact than pictorial HWLs with testimonial forms. Results from mixed-effects models confirmed these results. However, responses differed by participant educational attainment: didactic forms were consistently rated higher than testimonials among participants with higher education, whereas the difference between didactic and testimonial narrative forms was weaker or not statistically significant among participants with lower education. In the second experiment, with textual content held constant, greater credibility, relevance, and impact was found for graphic imagery of diseased organs than imagery of human suffering.
conclusionsPictorial HWLs with didactic textual forms seem to work better than those with testimonial narratives. Future research should determine which pictorial HWL content has the greatest real-world impact among consumers from disadvantaged groups, including assessment of how HWL content should change to maintain its impact as tobacco control environments strengthen and consumer awareness of smoking-related risks increases.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.