Effectivness of Public Health Intervention on Addiction
Public health interventions aimed at reducing addictive behaviour are laws induced by the government or voluntary organisations that are designed to prevent or treat addictions, which are targeted at the whole population not just individuals. One example of a public health intervention consists of banning smoking in public places to reduce smoking addiction. It is hoped that it will reduce the likelihood of cues becoming associated with smoking. It is however a worry that this will not deter people from smoking; it will simply encourage them to smoke and drink in their own homes. Another worry is that a smoking ban could also lead to a sense of solidarity between smokers. These worries were highlighted by Elton and Campbell (2008) who carried out a questionnaire survey in the UK before and after the ban and they concluded from their results that the smoking ban did not seem to reduce the number of people smoking, but that it did reduce the abundance smoked and therefore the number of heavy smokers.
Another intervention is the changing the packaging of the cigarettes so that they are all plain and uniform allowing people not to be drawn to the colourful aesthetic packaging, reducing their likelihood to smoke as one brand will not be favoured over another. Although this has not yet occurred research has been conducted to predict its success.
Support comes from research that looked into the sales of cigarettes based on their branded packaging. Munafo & Bauld found that cigarette brands increased sales after jazzing up their packets. Lambert & Butler’s 25th anniversary packaging increased their market share by 0.4% which is equivalent to £60 million. This was followed by Benson & Hedge’s slide packet caused sales to increase by 25% over 6 months and 32.5% over a year which meant a profit of £74 million.
They also conducted a study comparing non-smokers & daily smokers, who were made to look at branded packets with health warnings on them. They used eye-tracking technology to see response of both groups and measured no. of times participants focused on the brand and the warning of the packet. They found that non-smokers spent significantly more time on the warnings compared to the daily smokers who focused more on the brand. This highlights the importance of the packaging and how removing this packaging should decrease cigarette sales and as a result reduce the amount of people participating in the addiction. This supports the effectiveness of public health interventions as the loss of these attractive packaging means that people will be less likely to be drawn to them and buy them. This is especially effective in young adults who may begin their addiction to smoking by choosing an attractive packaging or copying the brand smoked by a role model which will be harder to determine if the packaging is all the same. However we must be cautious using this research as support for public health interventions, as this applies only for smoking addiction and may not be the same for other addictions such as heroin addiction or gambling therefore meaning that we cannot fully determine if this will completely prevent/treat all addictions, meaning more research is required to explain how other addictions can be prevented using this techniques and therefore fully understand the prevention of addiction from this point of view.