BACKGROUND AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES: To assess the impact of first national tobacco control mass media campaign to provide the evidence for promoting the tobacco control mass media campaign in China.
INTERVENTION OR RESPONSE: A total of 3000 participants were selected to complete post-campaign interviews through a stratified random sampling procedure.
RESULTS AND IMPACT: The campaign reached around 23.1% respondents mainly through CCTV (58.0%). In general, the respondents who were aware of the campaign had higher knowledge about the harmful effects of SHS exposure than those not aware (80.8% vs. 76.6%, P<0.05).The nonsmoker (86.8%) and female respondents （81.9%） who were aware of the campaign agreed more on “Smokers should avoid others being exposed in their cigarette smoke” than the nonsmoker （64.0%） and female （78.6%）who were not aware (P<0.05). The support for fine and punishment of smoking in public places is higher in the people who were aware of the campaign than those who were not aware (64.2% vs. 58.3%, P<0.05). Both male and female smokers those aware of the campaign （65.5%, 20.2%）were more likely to discuss the health issue caused by smoking and try quitting smoking than those not aware（59.0%, 14.5%）, P<0.05.
CONCLUSIONS: The mass media campaign reinforced people’s knowledge about specific harmful health effects of smoking and SHS exposure, increased smokers’ desire to quit, and increased people’s support for smoking bans in public places. Therefore, the public health communities should dedicate more resources for tobacco control mass media campaigns.