Addressing the determinants of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is challenged by aggressive market promotion by tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food industries in emerging countries with fast economic development; and interference by these industries in government policies aimed at containing consumption of unhealthy products. This editorial reviews market promotion and industry interference and...

The use of combustible tobacco products (e.g., cigarettes, cigars, pipe, bidis, kreteks, and hookah) among adults remains widespread around the world. Unless dramatic progress is made diminishing the initiation and increasing cessation of combustible tobacco product use, a billion preventable deaths will occur in the 21st century [1]. These deaths will be accompanied by unimaginable human suffe...

In this paper we study the beverage package recognition problem for mobile applications. Unlike products such as books and CDs that are primarily packaged in rigid forms, the beverage labels may be attached on various forms including cans and bottles. Therefore, query images captured by users may have a wide range or variations in appearance. Furthermore, similar visual patterns may appear on d...

INTRODUCTION This study uses the most recent data from the nationally representative National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) to examine the use of alternative tobacco products among U.S. cigarette smokers and non-cigarette smokers aged 14-17. Alternative tobacco product use is defined as use of one or more of the following products: smokeless tobacco, cigars, pipes, bidis, or kreteks. METHODS Us...

New tobacco products, designed to attract consumers who are concerned about the health effects of tobacco, have been appearing on the market. Objective evaluation of these products requires, as a first step, data on their potentially toxic constituents. Tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) are an important class of carcinogens in tobacco products, but virtually no data were available on their ...

OBJECTIVE To examine trends in children's exposure to food-related advertising on television by age, product category, and company. DESIGN Nutritional content analysis using television ratings data for 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009 for children. SETTING Annual age-specific television ratings data captured children's exposure to broadcast network, cable network, syndicated, and spot television ...

Despite numerous side effects associated with smoking and drinking, the appealand conditional demand of themin China are still in the ascendant. Though a heavy volume of literature has been found with respect to this issue, few empirical studies have been done on smoking and drinking in China. We attempt to bridge this gap by estimating two-part models of smoking and liquor drinking demand of u...

Brand extension is the behavior of applying an established brand to enter new product categories. Its success depends on the perception of attribute similarity between the original brand and the extension product. In this study, 16 participants were required to decide the suitability of extending the brand in stimulus 1 to the product category in stimulus 2 during a S1-S2 paradigm. S1 consists ...

Most tobacco control efforts in western countries focus on the factory-made, mass-produced (FM) cigarette, whereas other tobacco products receive relatively little attention. Noncombusted tobacco products (i.e., referred to as smokeless tobacco), particularly Swedish-style snus, carry lower disease risks, compared with combusted tobacco products such as cigarettes. In this context, it is import...