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Alcohol ads on the T reaching school children, BU study warns

E-mail | Print | Comments () Posted by Elizabeth Cooney November 4, 2009 04:00 PM

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Alcohol advertising inside MBTA subway cars reaches thousands of Boston Public School students every school day, a new study from Boston University reports, exposing young people to the kind of messages that research links to increased underage drinking.

A team from the Boston University School of Public Health sampled about 30 percent of Boston's subway cars and found an average of almost two ads for alcohol per subway car on the Orange, Red, Green and Blue lines. The Orange Line had the most and the Red Line had the fewest alcohol ads.

They concluded that the ads -- mostly beer and bourbon -- were seen more than 18,000 times per day by students from 11 to 18 years old as they rode to and from school, reaching about half of the more than 9,000 students who travel to school by subway each day, according to ratings used by advertisers to measure the success of their ads. That level of reach is the same as those students seeing about five Super Bowl ads every day, study senior author Dr. Michael Siegel said in an interview.

The study did not include advertising in subway stations or on bus lines, so the analysis is likely to underestimate alcohol advertising seen by students, the authors said.

The MBTA prohibits tobacco, firearms, violence, and nudity from advertisements on its property, but it has no plans to ban alcohol ads, "all of which include the government-required warnings about alcohol use and consumption," spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in a statement e-mailed to the Globe.

"The MBTA is mandated to maximize non-fare revenue to help cover the costs for operating expenses and ease the burden on fare-payers," he said. "A significant portion of the non-fare revenue is generated through the T’s advertising program."

The MBTA is suffering from mounting financial problems, the Globe reported today, based on an independent report ordered by Governor Deval Patrick.

Transit systems in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and San Francisco, do forbid alcohol advertising, according to background information in the study, published online today in the American Journal of Public Health. The study authors also cite research demonstrating a significant relationship between exposure to alcohol ads and increases in alcohol consumption among young people from 12 to 20 years old.

"It's between us and New York City," study co-author Siegel said. "We're the last 2 remaining strongholds in the United States that have public transit systems ... that allow alcohol ads. New York beat us in baseball. Let's not be the last to protect our children from this type of exposure."

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White Coat Notes covers the latest from the health care industry, hospitals, doctors offices, labs, insurers, and the corridors of government. Chelsea Conaboy previously covered health care for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at cconaboy@boston.com. Follow her on Twitter: @cconaboy.

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