This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (3)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Tobacco  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Product placement in movies has long been used to promote cigarette sales and brand awareness.¹ The November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between state attorneys general and major tobacco companies prohibits payment for tobacco brand placement in movies.² To evaluate whether the MSA has affected the number of tobacco brand appearances (TBAs) in movies, we analyzed the top 100 US box-office films per year for 1996-2003.

Methods

Because most movies released in 1999 were in production prior to the MSA, we used year of release to classify movies as pre-MSA (1996-1999; n = 400) or post-MSA (2000-2003; n = 400). Using previously validated methods,^3-4 2 coders viewed theater versions of movies on videotape or DVD (except 1 IMAX movie viewed and coded in the theater) and recorded the number of times a tobacco brand appeared and which brands were shown in each movie. All TBAs identified by the coders were confirmed by . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Anna M. Adachi-Mejia, PhD
anna.adachi-mejia@dartmouth.edu
Department of Pediatrics

Madeline A. Dalton, PhD
Department of Pediatrics

Jennifer J. Gibson, MS
Department of Community and Family Medicine

Michael L. Beach, MD, PhD
Department of Anesthesia

Linda T. Titus-Ernstoff, PhD
Department of Community and Family Medicine

Todd F. Heatherton, PhD
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

James D. Sargent, MD
Department of Pediatrics
Dartmouth Medical School
Hanover, NH

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Exposure to Smoking in Internationally Distributed American Movies and Youth Smoking in Germany: A Cross-cultural Cohort Study
Hanewinkel and Sargent
Pediatrics 2008;121:e108-e117.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Smoking in the Movies Increases Adolescent Smoking: A Review
Charlesworth and Glantz
Pediatrics 2005;116:1516-1528.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Short cuts: What's new in the other general journals
Tonks
BMJ 2005;330:1231-1232.
FULL TEXT