Associations of Tobacco Advertising Appeal With Intentions to Use Alternative Tobacco Products Among Young Tobacco Users Experiencing Homelessness

Predicting tobacco product initiation from intentions to use: Comparing the validity of item analysis methods

Items measuring tobacco use intentions are used to predict future use. Researchers combine items using different methods; however, no research has compared these methods’ predictive validity. Here, we compare how well six methods of analyzing four intention items predict initiation of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, snus pouches, and other smokeless tobacco one year later. We analyzed youth and young adult never users from the US Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study. We compared six methods of analyzing Wave 3 intention items in predicting Wave 4 use: susceptibility scoring (susceptible is not answering “definitely no” to all items); dichotomizing the four-item average using two cut-points on the 1–4 response scale; and dichotomizing one item (next year use intention) with three cut-points. Analyses (1) tested whether each single-item predicted initiation; and (2) compared each method’s (a) true positive rate (rate of correctly identifying future initiators), (b) true negative rate (rate of correctly identifying future non-initiators), and (c) model fit. Results were similar across products and age groups. Averaging items best predicted initiation in regression. Susceptibility scoring had the highest true positive rate but lowest true negative rate. False positives (incorrectly identifying someone as a future initiator) were best minimized by averaging items with a cutoff of 3, or using the single item with a 3 or 4 cutoff. Findings suggest researchers predicting tobacco use initiation using regression should average the four items; and researchers seeking to identify likely initiators should use different analytic methods depending on if they seek to maximize true positives or minimize false positives.

Perception and intention of using less harmful and less addictive hypothetical modified risk tobacco products among never tobacco users in the united states

AIMS

There is limited research focusing on how never tobacco users respond to claims associated with modified risk tobacco products (MRTPs). The purpose of the present study is twofold: (1) to identify how never tobacco users perceive hypothetical modified risk tobacco product (MRTP) claims; and (2) to assess whether these perceptions impact their intentions of using MRTPs described as "less harmful" and "less addictive."

METHOD

The present study draws upon a nationally representative dataset of US adults aged ≥ 18 years (n = 850) from a cross-sectional survey (HINTS-FDA, Cycle 2, 2017). Weighted unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression analyses were performed to analyze the data.

RESULTS

Participants who perceived tobacco products labeled as having "no additives" to be less harmful were close to three times more likely to report intentions of using "less harmful" (Adjusted OR = 2.93 [95% CI: 1.12-7.65]) and "less addictive" (Adjusted OR = 2.72 [95% CI: 1.03-7.21]) tobacco products than those who perceived them to be more/equally harmful. Participants who believed that tobacco products could be manufactured without some chemicals were over five and six times more likely to report intentions of using "less harmful" (Adjusted OR = 5.53 [95% CI: 1.59-19.25]) and "less addictive" (Adjusted OR = 6.60 [95% CI: 2.65-16.46]) tobacco products than those who were unlikely to believe it.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings have implications for FDA's regulation of MRTPs and provides insights regarding how the marketing of authorized MRTPs could impact population health in the future.

The Moderating Effects of Self-Referencing and Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal in Anti-Smoking Advertising for Adolescents

The tobacco epidemic is one of the most serious public health issues in the world. Tobacco use starts and becomes established primarily during adolescence, and nearly 9 out of 10 cigarette smokers first tried smoking by age 18, with 99% first trying by age 26. This study employed a 2 (advertising appeal: emotional vs. rational) by 2 (self-referencing: analytical vs. narrative) factorial design in Study 1; and a 2 (relational-interdependent self-construal: high and low) by 3 (social relational cue: self, friend, and family) factorial design in Study 2. The behavior intention of anti-smoking acted as the measured dependent variable. Samples of 192 (Study 1) and 222 (Study 2) were collected from one of the biggest high schools in northern Taiwan. The results showed advertising appeal and self-referencing had a significant interaction effect on behavior intention (p = 0.040). The results also showed rational appealing advertising is suitable for analytical self-referencing (p = 0.022) and emotional appealing advertising is suitable for narrative self-referencing (p = 0.067). However, the social relationship cue and relational-interdependent self-construal had no significant interaction effect on behavior intention, and only relational-interdependent self-construal significantly affected behavior intention (p < 0.001). Regardless of whether the relational-interdependent self-construal is high or low, when the anti-smoking advertising is from the family perspective to persuade adolescents not to smoke, both influence the adolescent more than the other two social relationship cues (self and friend).