University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 34, June 12

           Fulbright allows grad to study smoking in Senegal
     
     What does it take to entice a teenager in Senegal to
light up a cigarette and inhale? Whatever it is, Anna White,
an anthropology major and member of the class of '97, wants
to know.
     White learned before graduation that she had been
awarded a Fulbright grant to spend nine months in Senegal
researching the techniques tobacco companies use to lure the
Senegalese into smoking.
     The Fulbright Program was established by Congress to
increase understanding between the people of the U.S. and of
other countries. Each year, some 4,000 grants are awarded to
students, teachers and scholars to study, teach and conduct
research around the world.
     "I'll be traveling all over Senegal and documenting how
cigarettes are marketed throughout the country. What I'm
mainly interested in is the cultural context these companies
use in cigarette marketing," White said.
     She'll be based in Dakar, the capital city, where she
will have access to government and industry records that
will tell her things like how many cigarettes were sold
before a certain advertising campaign and how many were sold
after. White said she'll combine that kind of information
with interviews with people who smoke, focus groups, surveys
and interviews with government and tobacco company
officials. She'll also be taking pictures of billboards and
at sporting and musical events, which, she says, often are
sponsored by tobacco companies and inundated with their
logos, billboards and giveaways.
     "In all of their ads, they play up the Western image
because most [Senegalese] want to look and live like us in
the West. It's not because they don't know about lung
cancer; they are smoking because of psychological and
cultural reasons," White said.
     She said she is determined to find out what those
reasons are and give that information to anti-smoking and
government organizations in Senegal to produce anti-smoking
advertising and education campaigns.
     White leaves for Senegal in November.
                                           -Barbara Garrison