TY - JOUR
T1 - Targeted versus nontargeted communication about electronic nicotine delivery systems in three smoker groups
AU - Yang, Bo
AU - Liu, Jiaying
AU - Popova, Lucy
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products under Grant P50DA036128 and National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products under Grant R00CA187460. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the Food and Drug Administration.
Funding Information:
Funding: This work is supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products under Grant P50DA036128 and National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products under Grant R00CA187460. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the Food and Drug Administration.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2018/10
Y1 - 2018/10
N2 - Background: This study used an audience segmentation and message targeting approach to identify three distinct smoker groups—Older Freedom Smokers (OFS), Reluctant Smokers (RS), and Young Enthusiasts (YE)—and examined whether an electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) message targeting each smoker group (targeted message) was associated with more health-enhancing outcomes than messages targeting other groups (nontargeted messages). Methods: An online experiment was conducted among 580 adult smokers with 180 OFS, 200 RS, and 200 YE. Each smoker group viewed a targeted message and two nontargeted messages in a random order. Following the presentation of each message, participants reported their perceived message effectiveness, message reactions, ENDS-and cigarette-related beliefs, and behavioral intentions. Results: The targeted vs. nontargeted messages mostly did not produce more health-enhancing outcomes on perceptions of absolute and comparative risks of ENDS and cigarettes, response efficacy of ENDS, and self-efficacy as well as intentions to quit smoking. Conclusions: Our targeted messages did not appear to be a better choice over nontargeted messages to communicate about ENDS to smokers. Given the increasing call to accurately inform the public of the risk differences among various tobacco products, future studies should continue to explore whether targeted messages could be employed to communicate about the comparative risks of ENDS.
AB - Background: This study used an audience segmentation and message targeting approach to identify three distinct smoker groups—Older Freedom Smokers (OFS), Reluctant Smokers (RS), and Young Enthusiasts (YE)—and examined whether an electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) message targeting each smoker group (targeted message) was associated with more health-enhancing outcomes than messages targeting other groups (nontargeted messages). Methods: An online experiment was conducted among 580 adult smokers with 180 OFS, 200 RS, and 200 YE. Each smoker group viewed a targeted message and two nontargeted messages in a random order. Following the presentation of each message, participants reported their perceived message effectiveness, message reactions, ENDS-and cigarette-related beliefs, and behavioral intentions. Results: The targeted vs. nontargeted messages mostly did not produce more health-enhancing outcomes on perceptions of absolute and comparative risks of ENDS and cigarettes, response efficacy of ENDS, and self-efficacy as well as intentions to quit smoking. Conclusions: Our targeted messages did not appear to be a better choice over nontargeted messages to communicate about ENDS to smokers. Given the increasing call to accurately inform the public of the risk differences among various tobacco products, future studies should continue to explore whether targeted messages could be employed to communicate about the comparative risks of ENDS.
KW - Anti-smoking communication
KW - Audience segmentation
KW - Cigarettes
KW - ENDS
KW - Message targeting
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U2 - 10.3390/ijerph15102071
DO - 10.3390/ijerph15102071
M3 - Article
C2 - 30248887
AN - SCOPUS:85053844102
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 15
JO - International journal of environmental research and public health
JF - International journal of environmental research and public health
IS - 10
M1 - 2071
ER -