Webinar Description

This keynote provides participants a review of current advertising trends targeting youth in the realms of unhealthy food & beverage, cannabis, and vaping products and how they affect children in harmful ways.

Dr. Cassidy will focus on the food & beverage companies’ emerging marketing techniques including advanced digital technologies; the influence of exposure on consumption; and how marketing has shaped perceptions of eating and health.

Dr. Kirkilas will focus on how the cannabis industry is using similar marketing tactics that were once used by the tobacco industry, including emphasizing unsubstantiated health benefits and use of imagery that targets youth in order to decrease perception of risk and drive up use. He will also review current research that shows the impacts of cannabis advertising on youth’s perception of risk and increased likelihood of use, and the negative consequences of youth cannabis use.

Dr. Halpern-Felsher will focus on the extensive marketing of nicotine and non-nicotine e-cigarette products, including the tactics and messages used in these marketing efforts that focus on health claims, colors, and flashy imagery. Discussions will also include how e-cigarette marketing targets youth and influences youth perceptions and ultimately their use and the current e-cigarette marketing juxtaposed to current and prior cigarette marketing and policies restricting such marketing.

Ending discussions will focus on prevention and intervention curriculums, policy actions, and how we can work together to reduce the effects of marketing on youth, and be agents of change.

Webinar Speakers

Omni Cassidy, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine/Langone Health where she directs the Food, Culture, & Tech Lab. She examines the intersections of food, culture, and technology with a specific focus on how food and beverage companies use advanced digital technologies to market unhealthy products to communities of color. She also explores ways to leverage advanced digital technologies to develop, improve, and inform novel interventions to address behavior change, shift cultural narratives about food and food sovereignty, and inform policy. Her ultimate goal is to promote food environments that nourish both people and the planet.

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Dr. Gary Kirkilas is a general pediatrician at Phoenix Children’s Hospital with a unique practice. His office is a 35 foot mobile medical unit that travels to various homeless shelters in Phoenix providing free medical care to families and teens, as part of Phoenix Children’s Homeless Youth Outreach program. He also serves as a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, giving commentary on trending pediatric issues in the media. As a spokesperson, he is often called to speak on the effects of cannabis advertising on children and has written extensively on the topic. He has worked alongside legislators in several states in their attempt to restrict cannabis advertising that targets children. He and his lovely wife, have four wonderful (most of the time) children and one dachshund.

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Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher is the Marron and Mary Elizabeth Kendrick Professor in Pediatrics II in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University. She is the founder and executive director of the Tobacco Prevention Toolkit, the Cannabis Awareness and Prevention Toolkit, and the Vaping Information, Solutions, and Interventions Toolkit. Dr. Halpern-Felsher is a developmental psychologist with additional training in adolescent and young adult health.

Funded by the NIH and many foundations, her research has focused on understanding and reducing adolescent and young adult tobacco and marijuana use. Her research, committee, and advocacy work have been instrumental in setting policy at the local, state, and national level. She has served as a consultant to several community-based adolescent health promotion programs, participated in three Surgeon General Reports, participated in six National Academies of Science committees, and has been a member on several national campaigns to understand and reduce adolescent tobacco/e-cigarette use.

Free Registration

This event was pre-recorded at the 2023 Champions for Youth Summit. 

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