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Teens exposed to too much alcohol advertising on cable TV

August 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 21 (ANI): A new US study has revealed that ads for beer, spirits and ‘alcopop’ are frequently aired when more teens were watching television.

This is the first study to demonstrate an association between ad placement and teen cable TV viewership.

“Alcohol advertisers have pledged to avoid audiences made up of more than 30 percent underage viewers – such as children’s programming,” said David H. Jernigan, director of the Centre on Alcohol Marketing and Youth and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“However, many other shows have adolescent appeal. This research suggests that ads are aimed at groups that include a disproportionate number of teens and that the alcohol industry’s voluntary self-monitoring is not working to reduce adolescent exposure to ads,” he added.

The study showed that audiences with a higher percentage of youth between the ages of 12 and 20 were exposed to a higher frequency of alcohol ads, even after accounting for other factors that might explain ad placement decisions.

Each 1-percentage-point increase in adolescent viewership was associated with a 7-percent increase in beer ads, a 15-percent increase in spirits ads and a 22-percent increase in ads for low-alcohol refreshers/alcopops – flavored alcoholic beverages that taste similar to juice or soda.

However, wine ads decreased by 8 percent with each 1-percentage-point increase in adolescent viewership.

This finding suggests that alcohol advertisers can, in fact, successfully avoid adolescent audiences.

“This study did not examine whether alcohol advertisers are intentionally overexposing adolescents,” said lead study author Dr. Paul J. Chung, assistant professor of pediatrics at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and a senior natural scientist at the RAND Corp.

“The alcohol industry has consistently denied actively targeting teens, and our study isn’t designed to test that claim. However, the ultimate effect of their advertising strategies, intentional or not, appears to be greater exposure than might be expected if adults were the sole targets of ads,” he added.

The study appears online in American Journal of Public Health. (ANI)

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Kids who feel racial discrimination more prone to mental health problems

May 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 28 (ANI): Kids who feel racial or ethnic discrimination are more likely to suffer from mental health problems, according to a new study.

Racial and ethnic discrimination and their effect on mental health have been studied in adults and adolescents, but less is known about the effects of perceived discrimination on children’s mental health.
The new study involving UCLA and the RAND Corp. has shown that 15 percent of children surveyed reported experiencing what they perceived as discrimination and that the vast majority of these encounters occurred at school.

The study also found that children who reported feeling discrimination were more likely to have symptoms of one or more of four different mental health disorders: depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder.
“It was surprising to see positive associations between perceived racial and ethnic discrimination in the children and symptoms of all four examined mental health conditions,” said lead author Dr. Tumani R. Coker, clinical instructor of pediatrics at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and an associate natural scientist at RAND.

“Parents, clinicians and teachers should be aware that children may experience racial and ethnic discrimination in and out of school and that there may be detrimental effects on their mental health,” Coker added.
For the study, researchers analyzed data from a 2004-06 study of 5,147 fifth-graders and their parents from public schools in Los Angeles, Houston and Birmingham, Ala.
They found that a greater percentage of African American children (20 percent), Hispanic children (15 percent) and children identified as “other” (15 percent) reported perceived racial or ethnic discrimination than white children (7 percent).
The strongest and most consistent association of discrimination with mental health symptoms involved symptoms of depression in African American, Hispanic and “other” children reporting discrimination. This association was not significant for whites.
The study will be published in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health and is currently available online by subscription. (ANI)

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Now, Taliban, other extremist web sites cropping up in the US

April 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr.9 (ANI): Of late it has emerged that American-owned firms are playing host to extemist web sites.

The latest case involves a Taliban Web site claiming to be the voice of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”. It has boasted of a deadly new attack on coalition forces in that country.

The most remarkable about the message is the way it has been delivered.

The words were the Taliban’s, but they were flashed around the globe by an American-owned firm located in a leafy corner of downtown Houston, the Washington Post reports.

The Texas company, a Web-hosting outfit called ThePlanet, says it simply rented cyberspace to the group and had no clue about its Taliban connections.

For more than a year, the militant group used the site to rally its followers and keep a running tally of suicide bombings, rocket attacks and raids against U.S. and allied troops.

The cost of the service: roughly 70 dollars a month, payable by credit card.

The Taliban’s account was pulled last week when a blogger noticed the connection and called attention to it.

Intelligence officials and private experts cite dozens of instances in which Islamist militants sought out U.S. Internet firms — known for their reliable service and easy terms that allow virtual anonymity-and used them to incite attacks on Americans.

“The relatively cheap expense and high quality of U.S. servers seems to attract jihadists,” said Rita Katz, co-founder of the Site Intelligence Group, a private company that monitors the communications of Muslim extremist groups.

“You can learn a lot from the enemy by watching them chat online,” said Martin Libicki, a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corp., a non-profit research organization. (ANI)

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Teens exposed to too much alcohol advertising on cable TV

Kids who feel racial discrimination more prone to mental health problems

Now, Taliban, other extremist web sites cropping up in the US

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