Americans have used tobacco in a variety of forms: cigarettes, cigars, pipes, chew, and snuff. As you can see in the graphic at right there have been significant changes in the overall extent of tobacco use as well as in preferences for type. In 1965 the United States became the first country in the world to require a health warning on tobacco products. Labeling came as a result of increased awareness of the connection between tobacco use and a host of health problems - coronary heart disease (CHD) and cancer chief among them. Growing awareness and education have contributed to the dramatic changes in tobacco use that you can see in the graphic. As you explore this change you will learn:
- to describe the relationship between two variables in terms of their correlation using tables, scatter plots, and maps,
- to distinguish between examples of strong and weak correlation,
- to determine the equation of a line of best fit and to make predictions from it, and
- how these concepts are used to examine an important health topic.
Smoking was once considered cool - as these ads suggest:
1) Using the graph in the Introduction, identify the most popular form of tobacco in the first decade of the twentieth century. Describe how use changed throughout the rest of the century.
2) There are a variety of warning labels on packages of cigarettes today. Do some research and describe how the 1965 cigarette warning label pictured above in the title banner compares with contemporary labels.
3) Most ads make an emotional appeal in one form or another. Click on the ads above and identify the emotion(s) to which each appeals.
4) Check a variety of contemporary cigarette ads. What emotions are targeted today?
Historic Tobacco Use in the U.S. graphic from Per Capita Use of Different Forms of Tobacco, (WikiMedia Commons, 2012.), downloaded October 10, 2017.
