TOPLINE:

The campaign prevented more than 440,000 teens and kids from initiating e-cigarette use between 2023 and 2024.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers evaluated the impact of “The Real Cost” e-cigarette prevention campaign on the initiation of vaping among a nationally representative longitudinal cohort of US youth, with baseline data collected from August to December 2023 and follow-up data collected from June to September 2024.
• Address-based sampling was used to identify households with eligible youths aged 11-17 years who were invited to participate with parental consent.
• A total of 3408 participants who had never used e-cigarettes at baseline completed the follow-up survey and passed data quality checks at each wave.
• An exposure index ranging from 0 to 16 was created on the basis of the self-reported frequency of exposure to four campaign advertisements aired between baseline and follow-up, with larger values indicating a higher frequency of exposure.
• The primary outcome was the initiation of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes at follow-up among youths who had never used nicotine-containing e-cigarettes at baseline. Vapes containing tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, or delta-8 were not included.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, 77.4% of participants reported exposure to at least one campaign advertisement.
• Overall, 6.8% of participants who had never used e-cigarettes at baseline initiated use at follow-up.
• Increased awareness of the campaign was associated with reduced odds of initiating e-cigarette use at follow-up (adjusted odds ratio, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.90-0.99). The risk of initiating e-cigarette use decreased by 6% with per unit increase in the exposure index.
• The campaign prevented an estimated 444,252 (95% CI, 73,639-814,866) youths from initiating vape use between 2023 and 2024.

IN PRACTICE:

“The success of ‘The Real Cost’ youth e-cigarette prevention campaign in preventing youth e-cigarette use reinforces that public education initiatives, such as mass media campaigns that communicate the harms and risks of tobacco product use, are a key component of the comprehensive regulatory approach required to prevent and reduce youth tobacco product use,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Anna MacMonegle, MA, of the Center for Communication and Media Impact at RTI International in the Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was published online in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

LIMITATIONS:

This study could not control for the effects of state- or local-level public education campaigns, which may have influenced the results. The 1-year duration of the assessment limited the understanding of the long-term effects of the campaign on abstinence. The exposure index relied on self-reported data, which may have introduced recall bias.

DISCLOSURES:

No specific funding was reported in this study. The authors reported having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.