Is it as easy as young people claim for them to buy cigarettes?

Health Education - 2005
EmmaCroghan1, PaulAveyard1, CarolJohnson1
1Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Tóm tắt

PurposeThere is a discrepancy between the ease of purchase of cigarettes reported by young people themselves and the results of ease of purchase obtained by tests done by official sources such as Trading Standards Units. This discrepancy suggests that either data from young people or from trading standards are unreliable. This research set out to find out whether young peoples’ perceptions of easy purchasing from shops were true.Design/methodology/approachSix volunteer young people visited shops around the West Midlands region and attempted to buy cigarettes. They conducted the attempt in as realistic fashion as possible. All volunteers were assessed independently as looking under 16. Shopkeeper, shop, area and youth attributes were recordedFindingsYoung people were able to make purchases in 31 out of 38 shops. The young people were very surprised by their rates of successful purchase attempts across such a large geographical area.Practical implicationsShopkeepers and communities need to be given more help to recognise underage youth purchasers in order to reduce this important source of tobacco to young people. Trading standards protocols for test purchases need to be revised to reflect the reality of ease of purchasing for young people.Originality/valueThis research confirms that young people who say that it is possible to buy cigarettes from shops appear to generally be correct in their perceptions.

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Tài liệu tham khảo

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Health Education

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