How advertising differs in minorities

Filed in archive Studies on August 17, 2005

An interesting study was released looking at what was advertised to whites and minorities:

Magazines aimed at blacks and Hispanics have more ads for unhealthy products, such as cigarettes and alcohol, compared with publications aimed at white women, and fewer pages devoted to health-promoting ads.

A comparison of a dozen magazines targeted at white, black and hispanic readers found that black and Hispanic publications carried twice as many ads for unhealthy products as mainstream magazines aimed predominantly at white women, investigators reported today in the journal BMC Public Health.

Ads in the mainstream publications with an unhealthy impact came to 17.4%, vs. 30% in magazines for African-Americans and 39.1% in those for Hispanics, said Susan C. Duerksen, M.P.H., of San Diego State University and colleagues.

(Woznicki, "Unhealthy Products Heavily Featured in Magazines Aimed at Minorities", MedPage Today, Aug.17)