Brief report
Flavored Tobacco Product Use Among U.S. Young Adults

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Background

Passage of the U.S. Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009 led to a ban on the sale of flavored cigarettes, largely because of studies showing targeting of these products to youth and young adults. There are no current restrictions on the marketing or sale of noncigarette or new nontraditional smokeless tobacco products (such as snus and dissolvable products), which are available in more than 45 flavors.

Purpose

To determine the prevalence of flavored tobacco use, dual use of flavored and menthol tobacco products, and sociodemographic predictors of flavored tobacco product use in young adults aged 18–34 years (N=4196).

Methods

The current study utilizes data from Legacy's Young Adult Cohort Study, a nationally representative sample collected in January 2012. Data were analyzed using Stata IC 11.0 in June 2012.

Results

Overall, 18.5% of tobacco users report using flavored products, and dual use of menthol and flavored product use ranged from 1% (nicotine products) to 72% (chewing tobacco). In a multivariable model controlling for menthol use, younger adults were more likely to use flavored tobacco products (OR=1.89, 95% CI=1.14, 3.11), and those with a high school education had decreased use of flavored products (OR=0.56; 95% CI=0.32, 0.97).

Conclusions

Differences in use may be due to the continued targeted advertising of flavored products to young adults and minorities. Those most likely to use flavored products are also those most at risk of developing established tobacco-use patterns that persist through their lifetime.

Section snippets

Background

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., killing more than 400,000 people annually.1 Since the Master Settlement Agreement, which restricted tobacco marketing to youth,2 the tobacco industry has become increasingly strategic in its targeting of young adults.3 In 2010, young adults aged 18–25 years reported the highest prevalence of current use of a tobacco product (40.8%) compared to youth aged 12–17 years (10.7%) or adults aged ≥26 years (27.2%).4 The most recent estimate

Methods

This study uses cross-sectional data from the second wave of the Legacy Young Adult Cohort Study, a nationally representative sample of young adults aged 18–34 years drawn from GfK's Knowledge Panel.® Details of study recruitment and methods have been published elsewhere.14 The present study was approved by the Independent Investigational Review Board, Inc. Online consent was collected from participants before questionnaire self-administration. Data were collected in January 2012 with 4236

Results

Of the 992 participants (26.7%) reporting past-30-day use of any tobacco product, 982 provided information on use of flavored brands. The prevalence of any current flavored tobacco product use was 18.5% (95% CI=15.2%, 22.2%). When examined by product type (Table 1), flavored tobacco product use ranged from 3% for cigarettes to 59% for hookah and from 1% (cigarettes) to 50% (hookah) after excluding menthol-brand use. Dual use of menthol and flavored tobacco products varied from 1% (nicotine

Discussion

This is the first nationally representative study to examine the prevalence of flavored tobacco product use following the 2009 FDA ban on flavorings in cigarettes. In this large sample of U.S. young adults, almost 20% currently use a flavored tobacco product, and the most common flavored products included flavored pipe tobacco, little cigars, and hookah. This is higher than the 10.1% of all adults reporting past-30-day use of a flavored cigar in 2009.15 Use was less likely among those with

References (23)

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