Australians are great at recognising that smoking causes lung cancer, throat cancer, and mouth cancer but we're a bit hazy on the other details according to new research from Cancer Council Victoria.
In a survey of over 1,800 people, researchers from Cancer Council Victoria found that 91% of us understood that we are likely to develop lung cancer if we smoke but that number drops significantly when it comes to conditions such as female infertility (50%), diabetes (40%), and rheumatoid arthritis (27.1%).
The conditions we recognise the best as being associated with smoking are the ones which have been included in the graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging.
This is promising evidence for the effectiveness of the warnings but also suggests that we need faster updates of the images and campaigns, says Dr Michelle Scollo, a senior policy advisor at Cancer Council Victoria and the designer of the survey.
"The last couple of health warnings have only been reviewed every six years and yet new information about the health effects of smoking is coming out every few weeks and months," Scollo told BuzzFeed News.
The 2014 report from the United States Surgeon General on the health consequences of smoking named a number of conditions not previously linked definitively to tobacco, including: increased likelihood of cleft palates in babies with smoking mothers, a reduction in male sexual function, ectopic pregnancy, diabetes, and increased likelihood of stroke from secondhand smoking.
Less than half of the respondents in the Cancer Council study recalled that kidney cancer, bladder cancer, and acute leukaemia (a cancer of the blood and bone marrow) are caused by smoking.
The research also reveals that we know little about the conditions caused by smoking that might not kill us but affect our life quality such as erectile dysfunction and diabetes.
Australia first introduced the graphic warnings on cigarette packaging in August of 2004 and a new rotation of these images was introduced in 2012.
Scollo said that the researchers were pleased that people were able to recall the conditions included in the graphic warnings and media campaigns and noted that she wasn't surprised the other conditions weren't recalled as well "because they've never been really highlighted".
A spokesperson for the Department of Health told BuzzFeed News that the development of a new National Tobacco Strategy is now underway and the consultation phase will begin later this month.
"The government is aware that changes in health warnings are important to maintain saliency and enhance impact," said the spokesperson.
A market research evaluation of the graphic health warnings will be finished by the end of the year.
Scollo says that she would like to see a refreshing of mass media campaigns to compliment the graphic warnings and believes the two approaches working in tandem is the best way to inform the public.
"They can illustrate and explain conditions and show the human face so when somebody sees an image on a cigarette packet they can be reminded of a story".