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CENTURY
Yale University
School of Medicine
SAC-203
Connecticut
Mental Health Center
34 Park Street
New Haven, CT 06519

Phone:
203-974-7591

Fax:
203-974-7606

E-mail:
infocentury@yale.edu

CENTURY/TTURC Press Release

Public sentiment a factor in funding tobacco-control programs

Public sentiment can be a significant factor when it comes to getting funding for state tobacco-control programs, according to a new study from Yale researchers.

The findings show that states where citizens support smoking bans were more likely to fund tobacco-control programs. Changes in public opinion can affect political decisions linked to funding of programs to help smokers quit, the study says.

“The question we had was whether public opinion affects the allocation of money towards public health programs, especially tobacco control programs. What we found is that legislators are affected by public opinion about smoking,” says Angela Snyder, MPH, the lead author of the study. Snyder is a researcher with the policy unit of the Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Use Research at Yale (CENTURY).

Specifically, the study examined budget decisions relating to tobacco control made by states in 2001. The researchers picked that year because states were starting to get money from to the Master Settlement Agreement, which resulted in the tobacco industry making payments to states. These payments were to compensate states for health care expenditures for illnesses relating to smoking. The agreement was made in 1998 and funds started coming to the states in June 2000.

Many states did not take the opportunity to improve public health programs and instead used to the money to balance the state budget. Some states, however, did fund tobacco programs. “The findings from this study support our hypothesis that states with citizens who favor more restrictive indoor air policies (e.g. smoking bans) allocate more to tobacco control,” the authors say in the study. “Effective public education to change public opinion and the cultural norms surrounding smoking may affect political decisions and, in turn, increase funding for crucial public health programs.”

Snyder said the study's findings show that public health experts must be aware of the political process and how that affects funding of public health programs like smoking cessation. “They need to think about educating the public and building a constituency,” Snyder said.

The citation for the article is Snyder A, Falba T, Busch S, Sindelar J. Are State legislatures responding to public opinion when allocating funds for tobacco control programs? Health Promot. Pract.. 2004 Jul;5(3 Suppl):35S-45S.

This research was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as part of the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center at Yale (TTURC), and an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Training Grant supporting Yale Ph.D. students.

TTURC is part of the Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Use Research at Yale (CENTURY). CENTURY was formed to tackle tobacco use and addiction. The group is funded in part by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. For more information, please see http://www.quitwithyale.org/