Identifying Promising Message Themes for Youth Who Use Multiple Tobacco Products
Kowitt SD, et al. Identifying Promising Message Themes for Youth Who Use Multiple Tobacco Products. Journal of Adolescent Health. 8/4/2025. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2025.02.004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2025.02.004
“To examine the effects of message themes in ads targeting MTP use, we conducted an online within-subjects experiment with n = 310 US youth (ages 13–20) who reported past 30-day vaping and smoking cigarettes or cigars. Participants were randomly assigned to rate six messages from different themes about the consequences of vaping and smoking.”
“Regarding intended effects, all message themes performed significantly better than control on perceived message effectiveness (PME) (p < .01). In addition, themes about chemical exposures and health effects on organs with explanations for how health effects occurred led to higher PME than most other themes (including health effects on organs without explanations), while the nicotine addiction theme led to lower PME than most other themes (p < .05).”
TRC Research Commentary
“The Trump Administration has abandoned the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) as part of shuttering the Office of Smoking and Health (OSH), suspending the 2025 data collection midstream, effectively blinding the public, national, state and local public health agencies and policy makers about youth tobacco use in this era in which industry is rapidly introducing and promoting new tobacco products.”
In his blog post, Stanton Glantz outlines the important specific information provided in the NYTS and gives examples of his research that has drawn on this source of data on the direction of youth tobacco use. https://profglantz.com/blog/
For results of the 2024 NYTS, go to: https://web.archive.org/web/20250330221212/https:/www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/youth-and-tobacco/results-annual-national-youth-tobacco-survey
Note that information that the Trump Administration may pull off the FDA or CDC websites may be available at the web.archive.org, as with the NYTS above. Stephen Hamann
