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  • Risk perceptions and continued smoking as a function of cigarette filter ventilation level among US youth and young adults who smoke

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Original research
Risk perceptions and continued smoking as a function of cigarette filter ventilation level among US youth and young adults who smoke
  1. Dana Mowls Carroll1,
  2. Katelyn M Tessier2,
  3. K Michael Cummings3,
  4. Richard J O'Connor4,
  5. Sarah Reisinger5,
  6. Peter G Shields6,
  7. Irina S Stepanov1,
  8. Xianghua Luo7,
  9. Dorothy K Hatsukami8,
  10. Vaughan W Rees9
  1. 1 Division of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
  2. 2 Masonic Cancer Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
  3. 3 Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA
  4. 4 Department of Health Behavior, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York, USA
  5. 5 Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
  6. 6 James Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
  7. 7 School of Public Health, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
  8. 8 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
  9. 9 Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Dana Mowls Carroll, Environmental Health Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA; dcarroll{at}umn.edu

Abstract

Background While evidence demonstrates that the industry’s marketing of cigarettes with higher filter ventilation (FV) misleads adults about their health risks, there is no research on the relationships between FV, risk perceptions and smoking trajectories among youth (ages 12–17) and young adults (ages 18–24).

Methods Data on FV levels of major US cigarette brands/sub-brands were merged with the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study to examine whether FV level in cigarettes used by wave 1 youth/young adults (n=1970) predicted continued smoking at waves 2–4, and whether those relationships were mediated by perceived risk of their cigarette brand. FV was modelled based on tertiles (0.2%–11.8%, low; 11.9%–23.2%, moderate; 23.3%–61.1%, high) to predict daily smoking, past 30-day smoking and change in number of days smoking at successive waves.

Results The odds of perceiving one’s brand as less harmful than other cigarette brands was 2.21 times higher in the high versus low FV group (p=0.0146). Relationships between FV and smoking outcomes at successive waves were non-significant (all p>0.05).

Conclusion Youth and young adults who use higher FV cigarettes perceived their brand as less harmful compared with other brands. However, level of FV was not associated with continued smoking.

  • public policy
  • packaging and labelling
  • prevention
  • surveillance and monitoring
  • addiction

Data availability statement

Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Data used in the analysis include data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study (US) Restricted-Use Files (https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36231.v26). Data on filter ventilation values of cigarette brands are not publicly available.

https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-056833

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    Data availability statement

    Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Data used in the analysis include data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study (US) Restricted-Use Files (https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36231.v26). Data on filter ventilation values of cigarette brands are not publicly available.

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @dmowls

    • Contributors DMC, VWR and DKH led the study design. DMC drafted the manuscript and serves as the guarantor. DMC and KMT conducted the statistical analysis. All authors provided critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version for publication.

    • Funding This work was supported by NCI of the NIH under award numbers P01 CA217806 (to DKH and PGS) and R01 CA179246 (to ISS). Research reported in this article was also supported by NIMHD of the NIH under award number K01MD014795 (to DMC) and NIH grant P30 CA77598 using the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core shared resource of the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota and by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health award number UL1TR002494.

    • Disclaimer The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

    • Competing interests RJO’C reports personal fees and non-financial support from WHO and FDA outside the submitted work. KMC, PGS and VWR each report payment as an expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs in litigation against cigarette companies outside the submitted work.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.