Toward reducing youth exposure to tobacco messages: examining the breadth of brand and nonbrand communications.

Young people cannot escape prosmoking messages in today's society. From magazine advertisements to billboards to promotional products to storefronts, the pervasive landscape of tobacco-related communications is unavoidable. Despite increased restrictions on tobacco advertising and promotion in recent decades, including the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), tobacco companies continue to employ an extensive array of marketing communications practices that can reach youth.

Moving from information transfer to information exchange in health and health care.

Communication in most health and health care settings assumes that information provision is both necessary and sufficient to improve individual behavior and, subsequently, health. This paper examines and challenges commonly accepted practices of information transmission in health settings, demonstrating how such practices are insufficient because they are rooted in a one-way model of information transfer. Three case studies show how this model is pervasive in different health and health care milieus: patient/provider encounters, health promotion programs, and national health policymaking.