U.S. Sermo members react to new CDC report on exposure to e-cigarette ads among teens
Sermo, the leading global social network for physicians, announced the results of a poll today that found 90 percent of 2,506 doctors think that there should be restrictions on advertising for e-cigarettes similar to restrictions on traditional cigarettes.
The poll was launched on January 7th in reaction to a new Vital Signs report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found e-cigarette ads are reaching 7 in 10 teens. Another survey published last year by the CDC found that e-cigarette use tripled among US teens in 2014, with more high school students puffing on the devices (13.4%) than traditional cigarettes (9.2%).
Cigarette advertising was barred from both television and radio under the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 in an effort to reduce the smoking rate, but so far e-cigarette advertising has remained unrestricted.
“The smoking rate among teens is alarming and needs to be addressed to protect the health of our children,” said Dr. Linda Girgis, Sermo member and family physician. “Teens are being inundated with advertisements for e-cigarettes that make smoking look cool and sexy. They are being encouraged by the tobacco companies to take up this nasty habit that could have deadly consequences. We need to limit teens’ exposure to these e-cigarette advertisements to keep them from getting hooked.”
Participants in this poll were self-selected rather than being targeted from a probability sample, so no estimates of sampling error can be calculated when projecting to the universe of physicians. However, the margin of error when projecting to active Sermo members is ±2% as all of these members were invited by email to participate in the poll. It is calculated at the standard 95% confidence level. Therefore we can be 95% confident that the sample result reflects the active Sermo member base within the margin of error. This calculator is based on a 50% result in a poll, which is where the margin of error is at its maximum. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to multiple sources of error, including, but not limited to sampling error, coverage error, and measurement error. More information about the methodology can be found at https://www.sermo.com/polls.
About Sermo
Sermo is the leading social network for physicians – the virtual doctors’ lounge and the home of medical crowdsourcing – where doctors anonymously share their true feelings about their profession and lives and talk ‘real world’ medicine. Sermo has more than 500,000 fully verified and licensed members and is now available for doctors in fifteen countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US. Founded in the US in 2005, Sermo’s mission is to revolutionize real world medicine and to unite physicians, providing them with a safe, private and trusted platform for free and open discussions. Sermo harnesses the collective wisdom of doctors, enabling medical crowdsourcing, knowledge sharing and thus the advancement of medicine.
Sermo is also the world’s largest healthcare professional polling and survey company with 1.6 million healthcare professional members in both the social network and a digital research network, spanning 80 countries. Sermo conducts 700,000 surveys a year.
Learn more at www.Sermo.com
Media Contacts:
Randi Kahn, Public Relations Manager, Sermo
randi.kahn@sermo.com;
o: +1.212.358.0800 x967
m: +1.631.697.8310
Cassidy Lawson, Racepoint Global
clawson@racepointglobal.com;
o:+1.202.517.1378
Osnat Benshoshan, Chief Marketing Officer, Sermo
osnat.benshoshan@sermo.com