Social Support for the Pictorial Warning Label on Alcoholic Beverage Package Initiative

Abstract

Pictorial warning on alcoholic beverage label is challenging concept for alcohol policy intervention. (Hereby pictorial warning means warning messages consisting of both pictorial and text message, as compared to the conventional text-only message) Having not been put into action, technical evidence on its impact is very limited. This study explored Thai social attitude on the pictorial warning label policy, through two multi-stage sampling surveys on different population groups in 2010. The first survey was among 1,512 grade 4-6 students (aged 10-12 years) from 5 geographical regions. The second survey was among 6,951 adults (aged 15 years and over) nationwide. This survey revealed that 75.6 percent and 81.7 percent of Thai kids and adults, respectively, supported the pictorial warning label policy. In all, 94.5 percent of youth agreed with messages samples contained in the draft legislation, and 91.8 percent among adults. Moreover, this study demonstrates the positive effect of the pictorial warning label in protecting kids from alcohol use, through the awareness raising, influence of pictorial messages and potential to reduce the appeal of beverage alcohol packages. In conclusion, findings of this study support the pictorial warning label initiative.