Season 2, Episode 5: Inside FDA's 10-Year Campaign to Prevent Youth Tobacco Use

Empathy Affect

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) longest-running tobacco public education campaign, The Real Cost, is marking its 10th anniversary this year. The campaign aims to prevent youth from using tobacco through powerful messaging and real-life stories, but how has The Real Cost remained relevant as the media landscape, young people, and the market of tobacco products all evolved rapidly? In this episode of Empathy Affect, we explore these questions and dive into the methods and public health impact of The Real Cost.
April Brubach is the acting director of FDA's Center for Tobacco Products' (CTP) Office of Health Communications and Education (OHCE) and has worked at CTP since 2010. She joined CTP in 2010, working across a portfolio of tobacco prevention campaigns, education initiatives, and communication science and policy. She has previously built and managed the Health and Human Services' COVID-19 Public Education Campaign, and she has served as deputy for FDA's COVID-19 Joint Information Cell and communication program manager at the National Cancer Institute.
Merrybelle Guo is a social scientist at FDA CTP's OCHE. She has also served as a health communications specialist at CTP and a digital communications fellow at the Office of the Surgeon General.

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