Evaluation of non-English dietary supplement advertisements in an ethnic minority community in America

Abstract

Objective: The primary objective was to evaluate the rate at which non-English dietary supplement advertisements distributed in a sampled ethnic minority community are in compliance with the federal advertising regulations. The secondary objective was to assess the availability of supporting evidence to substantiate the advertised health claims. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: The contents of dietary supplement advertisements from the Los Angeles Korea Times and the Los Angeles Korea Daily were evaluated during the month of July 2005. After removing duplicate advertisements, the percentage of advertisements making prohibited disease claims and DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act) disclaimer statements was determined. The presence of data substantiating advertised claims was determined by requesting data from the manufacturers and browsing the manufacturers' websites. An observational technique was utilised for content analysis, and data analysis was conducted using quantitative descriptive statistics. Results: Disease claims were present in 84.5%, while DHSEA disclaimer statements were present in only 18.4% of the advertisements. Data to substantiate the claims were provided by 53.4% of the manufacturers. The majority of the additional information consisted of repetition of the advertised claims and consumer testimonies. Experimental data were available for only 13.6% of the products. Conclusions: The high rate of non-compliance with federal regulations suggests a need for better oversight of non-English promotions of dietary supplements.