~ 817 ~ ISSN Print: 2394-7500 ISSN Online: 2394-5869 Impact Factor: 5.2 IJAR 2017; 3(5): 817-821 www.allresearchjournal.com Received: 27-03-2017 Accepted: 28-04-2017 Haladi Sudhir Prabhu 1) Department of Community Medicine, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore, Karnataka, India 2) Department of Community Medicine, JJM Medical College, Davangere, Karnataka, India Arijit Banerjee Department of Community Medicine, JJM Medical College, Davangere, Karnataka, India Aswin Kumar Department of Community Medicine, JJM Medical College, Davangere, Karnataka, India M Sambaji Rao Department of Community Medicine, JJM Medical College, Davangere, Karnataka, India Raees Tonse Department of Radiation Oncology, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore, Karnataka, India Michael LJ Pais Department of Community Medicine, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore, Karnataka, India Suresh Rao Department of Radiation Oncology, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore, Karnataka, India Manjeshwar Shrinath Baliga Department of Radiation Oncology, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore, Karnataka, India Correspondence Dr MS Baliga Senior Radiobiologist, Mangalore Institute of Oncology, Pumpwell, Mangalore, Karnataka, India Appraisal of the effectiveness of pictorial warning in anti-tobacco campaign: a community based study from Davangere, Karnataka India Haladi Sudhir Prabhu, Arijit Banerjee, Aswin Kumar, M Sambaji Rao, Raees Tonse, Michael LJ Pais, Suresh Rao and Manjeshwar Shrinath Baliga Abstract Global studies from around the world have shown that tobacco is a leading preventable cause of death, killing nearly six million people worldwide each year of which nearly one sixth are from India. Informing about the harm of tobacco use through large and colorful pictorial warnings on tobacco products are an effective way of communicating the deleterious effects of tobacco to the consumers and general public. India has introduced the pictorial health warnings for the first time in 2009 with the drawings of a scorpion on smokeless forms of tobacco and pictures and X- rays of diseased lungs for smoking forms. The study was conducted using a structured questionnaire in the months of October to November 2010 in Davangere of India with both smokeless and smoke form users at the point of vendor sale. The results indicated that the pictorial warnings, especially the ones present on the smoking forms were not effective and did no not serve the desired purpose as the consumers could not comprehend the meaning of the picture. The scorpion becomes associated with the product in a non- scientific manner. In conclusion, in our study we observed that most of the tobacco consumers have seen pictorial warnings on tobacco products, but hardly few of them have comprehended the pictorial warnings correctly. The present pictorial warnings were able to motivate very few tobacco consumers to quit/reduce tobacco consumption. Therefore the impact factor was very less among tobacco consumers and that an urgent need for reconsideration for more effective pictorial warnings is required. Keywords: Pictorial warning, anti-tobacco, Global studies Introduction Global reports suggest that the use of tobacco, which is a major preventable cause of premature diseases and death, is approximately 5 million [1] and that the figures will increase to more than 8 million a year by 2030 [2] . Reports also indicate that India is currently the second largest consumer of tobacco after China [3] and that nearly one million people died from smoking alone in the year 2010 [4] . Current estimates are that Reports suggest that the approximate estimated number of tobacco users in India is 274.9 million, with 163.7 million users of only smokeless tobacco; 68.9 million are exclusive smokers, and 42.3 million users of both smoking and smokeless tobacco [5] . The worrisome facts are that tobacco abuse continues to grow at 2-3% per annum [6] and would inflict a major burden on the socioeconomic and healthcare system. In lieu of these observations, it is predicted that by the year 2020 tobacco will account for nearly 13% of all deaths in the country [6] . When compared to the most developed countries that have predominately cigarettes users, in India, in addition to cigarettes, tobacco is used in a large variety of smoking forms especially the beedi, hooka and chutta, and a range of smokeless forms like snuff, khaini, mawa, pan (betel quid with tobacco), zarda, gutkha and toombakoo [7] . The use of non cigarette forms of tobacco is more prevalent among men, in people from the rural areas, illiterates, poor and vulnerable section of the society who are mostly unaware of its ill effects [3] . The extent of use of smokeless tobacco products is reported to be higher in males (33%) than females (18%) [5] . These indigenous forms of tobacco have longer and early histories of use in the Indian population than cigarettes and are also shown to impart grievous health consequences International Journal of Applied Research 2017; 3(5): 817-821