Three new research papers find that truth^®, Legacy's national youth smoking prevention campaign, remains highly effective as well as cost-efficient in its mission to prevent the youth of America from beginning to smoke. Two of the papers were published online on February 12, and will appear in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM). The third study appears in the February print issue of Ethnicity and Health.

• The first study, titled "The Influence of the National truth^® Campaign on Smoking Initiation" was conducted by researchers at RTI International. Lead author Matthew Farrelly and his team found a direct correlation between the level of truth^® advertising to which teens were exposed and a decrease in the amount of teens who began smoking. According to the study, "approximately 450,000 fewer adolescents and young adults initiated smoking as a result of the truth^® campaign from 2000 to 2004." The full results of the paper can be found at http://www.ajpm-online.net/current.
  
  
• The second study, called "Cost-utility Analysis of the "truth^®" Social Marketing Campaign to Prevent Youth Smoking," was lead by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Co-author Dr. David Holtgrave examined whether the economic investment in the campaign was justifiable given its effect on public health outcomes. The study looked at the years 2000 to 2002 and found that "truth^® not only markedly improved the public's health but did so in an economically efficient manner by not only recouping the costs of the campaign, but also saving between $1.9 and $5.4 billion in medical care costs to society."
  
  
• In the third study, "The Impact of the 'Truth' Campaign on Beliefs, Attitudes, and Intent to Smoke by Race/Ethnicity," researchers from RTI International set out to "examine racial/ethnic differences in the association between exposure to the 'truth' antismoking campaign and youth's beliefs and attitudes about cigarette companies and their intent to smoke." Lead author AJ Cowell and his team write that the data from the research "indicates that exposure to the truth^® campaign was positively associated with increased anti-tobacco beliefs and attitudes among youth overall." The study underscores that different truth^® campaign messages appealed to youth based on their race/ethnicity, an issue that should be considered when developing future campaigns to reach youth with behavior change messages.