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Introduction: A federal court has ordered tobacco companies to issue corrective messages to address tobacco-related misperceptions. This study examined the effects of viewing current versus two enhanced versions of tobacco corrective messages on smokers' intention to quit smoking and intention to purchase cigarettes., Methods: US adult smokers (N = 803) were randomly assigned to view (1) two current tobacco corrective messages (Current), (2) two corrective messages that include an industry deception statement (Industry Deception), or (3) two corrective messages with an industry deception statement and testimonials of people harmed by smoking (Industry Deception + Testimonial). Outcomes were pretest-posttest change in intentions to quit smoking and posttest intention to purchase cigarette measures., Results: Intention to quit smoking increased significantly after viewing the Current corrective messages versus baseline. In addition, viewing the Industry Deception + Testimonial messages increased intention to quit smoking compared with the Current corrective condition and the Industry Deception condition. Hispanic smokers had increased intention to quit smoking and decreased intention to purchase cigarettes to a greater degree than non-Hispanic smokers in response to Industry Deception + Testimonial messages. There was no significant difference in intention to purchase cigarettes across conditions., Conclusions: Enhancing the current corrective statements by including an industry deception statement and testimonials may strengthen effects and contribute to remedying the effects of tobacco misinformation., Implications: Previous research has found that draft or proposed versions of tobacco industry corrective messages are effective in correcting beliefs and knowledge. However, studies have not examined how the current court-ordered corrective messages could change intention to quit smoking and intention to purchase cigarettes nor whether enhanced messages could perform better. Study findings suggest that the current corrective messages can increase smokers' intention to quit smoking beyond their baseline intention. More importantly, enhancing corrective messages by including an industry deception statement and testimonial was found to be more effective than current corrective messages. Findings can inform future iterations of tobacco correctives and strategies to reverse the effects of tobacco misinformation., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved.For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Against a backdrop of increasing smoke-free policies, electronic cigarette use, and discussion about public health risks posed by smoking and vaping, this study examines psychosocial predictors of intentions to ask others not to use e-cigarettes (vape) and smoke - i.e., assertive communication intentions. A national sample of U.S. adults (n = 474) reported assertive communication intentions for public venues. Psychosocial correlates included perceived risks of exposure to secondhand smoke (SHSe) and secondhand vapor (SHVe), SHSe and SHVe attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived self-efficacy. Separate linear regression models were conducted for smoking and vaping assertive communication intention outcomes. Perceived risks and self-efficacy were associated with greater vaping and smoking assertive communication intentions; subjective norms were only significant for vaping assertive communication intentions. Although a majority of respondents indicated they were unlikely to intervene to voice objections about SHSe and SHVe in public venues, this study suggests that incidental or intentional messages and policies that influence perceptions of risk, norms, and efficacy could affect willingness to voice objections about others' vaping and smoking in public.

Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) are increasingly popular, especially among young adults. Many ENDS advertisements and anti-ENDS public service announcements (PSAs) contain portrayals of ENDS use and visible vapor. Though it is plausible that vapor would be processed in similar ways to traditional combustible cigarette smoking cues, this has not been consistently established. In a laboratory session, we assessed cognitive and emotional processing using psychophysiological measures (e.g., facial electromyography, heart rate, and skin conductance) among young participants who were either smokers only (N = 43) or dual users of ENDS and cigarettes (N = 28) as they viewed four anti-vaping PSAs depicting either vapor or no vapor. Self-report urge to smoke traditional cigarettes and urge to vape and recognition (encoding) of information within the PSAs were measured following each PSA. Orbicularis oculi activation (positive emotion), heart rate deceleration (cognitive resource allocation), recognition (encoding), and vaping urge were greater in the vapor-present condition relative to vapor-absent condition. Hence, the presence of vapor in anti-vaping PSAs activates the approach/appetitive motivational system indicated by greater positive emotion, cognitive resource allocation, and memory, but also greater vaping urge compared to PSAs absent in vapor. Recommendations for inclusion of vapor and design of anti-vaping PSAs are discussed.

Potentially harmful chemicals are detectable in e-cigarette secondhand vapor (hereafter SHV), contrary to advertising and marketing claims that it contains "only water vapor." We assessed public knowledge about the presence of chemicals in SHV and associations between knowledge and perceived harms of exposure to SHV. We conducted an online survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,449 U.S. adults (GfK's KnowledgePanel) from October to December 2013. Respondents were asked whether e-cigarette vapor contains only water vapor, contains tar, or contains formaldehyde (true/ false/ do not know). Responses to these three items were recoded (1 = incorrect, 2 = do not know, and 3 = correct) and averaged into a knowledge scale. They were also asked if they perceived breathing SHV to be harmful to one's health (two-item scale) and comparative harm of breathing SHV versus breathing secondhand smoke (SHS). Multiple regression analyses were weighted to the U.S. adult population and adjusted for potential confounders. Most respondents (58-75%) reported not knowing whether SHV contained only water vapor, if SHV contained tar, and if it contained formaldehyde. African-American respondents (vs. white) and current smokers (vs. nonsmokers) had lower levels of knowledge about chemicals in SHV. Adjusting for covariates, correct knowledge about chemicals in SHV was associated with higher perceived harms about SHV for one's health and perceived comparative harm of SHV versus SHS. These findings suggest a need to provide accurate information about the presence of chemicals in SHV (e.g., using product ingredient labels or public education)., (© 2016 Society for Risk Analysis.)

Background: Policies designed to restrict marketing, access to, and public use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are increasingly under debate in various jurisdictions in the US. Little is known about public perceptions of these policies and factors that predict their support or opposition., Methods: Using a sample of US adults from Amazon Mechanical Turk in May 2015, this paper identifies beliefs about the benefits and costs of regulating e-cigarettes and identifies which of these beliefs predict support for e-cigarette restricting policies., Results: A higher proportion of respondents agreed with 8 different reasons to regulate e-cigarettes (48.5% to 83.3% agreement) versus 7 reasons not to regulate e-cigarettes (11.5% to 18.9%). The majority of participants agreed with 7 out of 8 reasons for regulation. When all reasons to regulate or not were included in a final multivariable model, beliefs about protecting people from secondhand vapor and protecting youth from trying e-cigarettes significantly predicted stronger support for e-cigarette restricting policies, whereas concern about government intrusion into individual choices was associated with reduced support., Discussion: This research identifies key beliefs that may underlie public support or opposition to policies designed to regulate the marketing and use of e-cigarettes. Advocates on both sides of the issue may find this research valuable in developing strategic campaigns related to the issue., Implications: Specific beliefs of potential benefits and costs of e-cigarette regulation (protecting youth, preventing exposure to secondhand vapor, and government intrusion into individual choices) may be effectively deployed by policy makers or health advocates in communicating with the public.

Introduction: Social media, such as Twitter, have become major channels of communication and commentary on popular culture, including conversations on our nation's leading addiction: tobacco. The current study examined Twitter conversations following two tobacco-related events in the media: (1) President Obama's doctor announcing that he had quit smoking and (2) the release of a photograph of Miley Cyrus (a former Disney child star) smoking a cigarette. With a focus on high-profile individuals whose actions can draw public attention, we aimed to characterise tobacco-related conversations as an example of tobacco-related public discourse and to present a novel methodology for studying social media., Methods: Tweets were collected 11-13 November 2011 (President Obama) and 1-3 August 2011 (Miley Cyrus) and analysed for relative frequency of terms, a novel application of a linguistic methodology., Results: The President Obama data set (N=2749 tweets) had conversations about him quitting tobacco as well as a preponderance of information on political activity, links to websites, racialised terms and mention of marijuana. Websites and terms about Obama's smoke-free status were most central to the conversation. In the Miley Cyrus data (N=4746 tweets), terms that occurred with the greatest relative frequency were positive, emotional and supportive of quitting (eg, love, and please), with words such as 'love' most central to the conversation., Conclusions: People are talking about tobacco-related issues on Twitter, and semantic network analysis can be used to characterise on-line conversations. Future interventions may be able to harness social media and major current events to raise awareness of smoking-related issues., (Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.)

Objectives: We examined the association of smoke-free laws with dentists' advice to quit smoking and referral to a quit line, among smokers who reported visiting the dentist in the past 12 months., Methods: We used the 2006 to 2007 Tobacco Use Supplement of the Current Population Survey merged with the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation Local Ordinance Database of smoke-free laws. The dependent variables were advice from a dentist to quit smoking and referral to a quit line, and the independent variable of interest was 100% smoke-free law coverage. We controlled for respondent demographics and an index of state-level smoking ban attitudes (included to ensure that the effect detected was not the result of social attitudes)., Results: Smoke-free law coverage was associated with dental advice to quit smoking (odds ratio [OR] = 1.27; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.01, 1.59; P = .041), but not with referral to a quit line (OR = 1.33; 95% CI = 0.79, 2.25; P = .283)., Conclusions: Interventions with dentists are needed to increase referrals to quit lines and other smoking cessation efforts.

Objectives: We examined the pattern of the passage of smoking laws across venues (government and private workplaces, restaurants, bars) and by strength (no law to 100% smoke-free)., Methods: We conducted transition analyses of local and state smoking restrictions passed between 1970 and 2009, with data from the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights Ordinance Database., Results: Each decade, more laws were enacted, from 18 passed in the 1970s to 3172 in the first decade of this century, when 91% of existing state laws were passed. Most laws passed took states and localities from no law to some level of smoking restriction, and most new local (77%; 5148/6648) and state (73%; 115/158) laws passed in the study period did not change strength., Conclusions: Because these laws are "sticky"-once a law has passed, strength of the law and venues covered do not change often-policymakers and advocates should focus on passing strong laws the first time, rather than settling for less comprehensive laws with the hope of improving them in the future.

This study examines how addicted smokers attend visually to smoking-related public service announcements (PSAs) in adults smokers. Smokers' onscreen visual fixation is an indicator of cognitive resources allocated to visual attention. Characteristic of individuals with addictive tendencies, smokers are expected to be appetitively activated by images of their addiction--specifically smoking cues. At the same time, these cues are embedded in messages that associate avoidance responses with these appetitive cues, potentially inducing avoidance of PSA processing. Findings suggest that segments of PSAs that contain smoking cues are processed similarly to segments that contain complex stimuli (operationalized in this case as high in information introduced) and that visual attention is aligned with smoking cues on the screen.

Introduction: E-cigarette advertising frequently involves vaping cues-hand to mouth motions and vapor-that physically resemble traditional cigarette smoking cues. There has been concern that these vaping cues could make cigarettes seem more frequently used and acceptable by society. This analysis examined whether exposure to vaping cues in e-cigarette ads influence descriptive and injunctive normative perceptions about cigarettes among young adults who use cigarettes and e-cigarettes (dual use).Method: Secondary analysis was conducted on an experiment that randomly exposed young adults living in Boston who dual used in the past-week to either 1) E-cigarette ads with vaping cues; 2) E-cigarette ads that edited out vaping cues; or 3) Beverage ads. Descriptive and injunctive normative perceptions about cigarettes were compared across participants who viewed e-cigarette ads with vaping cues versus those who viewed ads without vaping cues.Results: Those who viewed e-cigarette ads with vaping cues had decreased perceptions that cigarette smoking was common compared to those who viewed e-cigarette ads without vaping cues. Exposure to e-cigarette ads with vaping cues also led to increased perceptions of other peoples' unfavorable views toward cigarette smoking in general and their own cigarette smoking.Conclusion: Contrary to renormalization concerns, vaping cues in e-cigarette ads increased anti-smoking normative perceptions among people who dual used in the past week. Further research is needed to examine the impact of vaping cues in e-cigarette ads on normative perceptions among those who don't smoke or quit smoking cigarettes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study describes prevalence and correlates of US adults' intentions to engage in assertive communication (i.e., speak up) about others' smoking and vaping in public venues.Methods: Participants from a nationally representative online survey of 1551 US adults conducted October-December 2013 reported intentions to ask others not to smoke/vape in three types of public venues (restaurants, bars/casinos/nightclubs, and parks). We examined weighted prevalence of intentions and conducted weighted logistic regression.Results: Fifty-two percent of participants reported being likely to ask someone not to smoke in at least one venue compared with 19% for vaping. Assertive communication intentions for smoking in restaurants (48%), bars/casinos/nightclubs (35%), and parks (32%) were higher than for vaping (16%, 14%, and 12%, respectively). Significant correlates of assertive communication intentions in one or more venues were current smoking status, ever trying e-cigarettes, gender, age, health status, political ideology, and party identification.Conclusions: US adults were more willing to ask others not to smoke than vape. Intentions to speak up about smoking and vaping differed by venue, demographics, and cigarette/e-cigarette use. These findings help establish an evidence base to inform policymakers in developing strategies to promote compliance with smoke-free and vape-free laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]