Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Tob Control. 2015 Jan;24(1):43-7. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2013-050981. Epub 2013 Jul 18.
There is anecdotal evidence that health messages interpreted from waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS) research are inconsistent, such as comparing the health effects of one WTS session with that of 100 cigarettes. This study aimed to identify key health themes about WTS discussed by online news media, and how numerical cigarette-waterpipe equivalence (CWE) was being interpreted.
We identified 1065 online news articles published between March 2011 and September 2012 using the 'Google Alerts' service. We screened for health themes, assessed statements mentioning CWE and reported differences between countries. We used logistic regression to identify factors associated with articles incorrectly reporting a CWE equal to or greater than 100 cigarettes, in the absence of any comparative parameter ('CWE ≥100 cigarettes').
Commonly mentioned health themes were the presence of tobacco (67%) and being as bad as cigarettes (49%), and we report on differences between countries. While 10.8% of all news articles contained at least one positive health theme, 22.9% contained a statement about a CWE. Most of these (18.6% total) were incorrectly a CWE ≥100 cigarettes, a quarter of which were made by healthcare professionals/organisations. Compared with the Middle East, articles from the USA and the UK were the most significant predictors to contain a CWE ≥100 cigarettes statement.
Those wishing to write or publish information related to WTS may wish to avoid comparing WTS to cigarettes using numerical values as this is a major source of confusion. Future research is needed to address the impact of the media on the attitudes, initiation and cessation rates of waterpipe smokers.
有传闻证据表明，从水烟烟草吸烟（WTS）研究中得出的健康信息不一致，例如将一次 WTS 疗程的健康影响与 100 支香烟进行比较。本研究旨在确定在线新闻媒体讨论的关于 WTS 的关键健康主题，以及如何解释数字香烟-水烟等效物（CWE）。
我们使用“Google Alerts”服务，于 2011 年 3 月至 2012 年 9 月期间识别了 1065 篇在线新闻文章。我们筛选出健康主题，评估了提到 CWE 的陈述，并报告了国家之间的差异。我们使用逻辑回归来确定在没有任何比较参数的情况下，不正确报告 CWE 等于或大于 100 支香烟的文章的相关因素（“CWE≥100 支香烟”）。
通常提到的健康主题是存在烟草（67％）和与香烟一样有害（49％），我们报告了国家之间的差异。虽然所有新闻文章中有 10.8％至少包含一个积极的健康主题，但有 22.9％包含关于 CWE 的陈述。这些陈述中大多数（总共 18.6％）是不正确的 CWE≥100 支香烟，其中四分之一是由医疗保健专业人员/组织发表的。与中东相比，来自美国和英国的文章是包含 CWE≥100 支香烟陈述的最显著预测因素。
那些希望撰写或发布与 WTS 相关的信息的人可能希望避免使用数值来比较 WTS 和香烟，因为这是造成混淆的主要原因。需要进一步研究以解决媒体对水烟吸烟者的态度、开始和戒烟率的影响。
