BACKGROUND: In Australia the proportion of teenagers smoking has increased for the first time in 25 years whilst vaping is now a significant public health concern for governments around the world. The Australian national and state governments were active from the early 1960s in attempting to reduce smoking rates in teenagers. Less attention has been given to non-government cancer organisations who utilised the behavioural sciences, publicity and political lobbying to both educate the public on the dangers of smoking and push for legislative action. This presentation will focus on the inner workings of these organisations and how they specifically targeted cancer prevention in Australian teenagers from the early 1960s.
METHODS: This research uses the archive of Australian anti-cancer advocacy organisations, Truth Tobacco industry documents, Australian government records, and newspaper archives. It applies the methodology of public health humanities to an historical case study. Public health humanities is an innovative interdisciplinary framework that merges historical studies with health promotion disciplines to tackle complex health challenges, such as tobacco control (Kehoe, Holbrook et al., 2023). This approach acknowledges that contemporary health issues are influenced by historical policies and socio-cultural contexts, leveraging insights from past successes and failures in health promotion to guide the development of more effective future initiatives
RESULTS: This case study shows how, and why, advocacy organisations targeted teenagers with both educational information on the dangers of smoking through official channels such as school curriculums, and with film and promotional materials.
CONCLUSIONS: The paper informs current strategy on rising teenage smoking and vaping rates by identifying how advocacy organisations instigated flexible, persistent and innovative campaigns in the past to reduce youth smoking, and how they embraced advancements in technology and behavioural science to inform their strategies.