Vasiljevic Milica, St John Wallis Amelia, Codling Saphsa, Couturier Dominique-Laurent, Sutton Stephen, Marteau Theresa M
Behaviour and Health Research Unit, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Behavioural Science Group, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
BMJ Open. 2018 Jul 16;8(7):e020247. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020247.
Children exposed to electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) adverts may perceive occasional tobacco smoking as less harmful than children not exposed to e-cigarette adverts. Given the potential cross-cueing effects of e-cigarette adverts on tobacco smoking, there is an urgent need to establish whether the effect found in prior research is robust and replicable using a larger sample and a stronger control condition.
A between-subjects experiment with one independent factor of two levels corresponding to the advertisements to which participants were exposed: glamorous adverts for e-cigarettes, or adverts for objects unrelated to smoking or vaping.
English school children aged 11-16 (n=1449).
Perceived harm of occasional smoking of one or two tobacco cigarettes was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included: perceived harm of regular tobacco smoking, susceptibility to tobacco smoking and perceived prevalence of tobacco smoking in young people. Perceptions of using e-cigarettes were gauged by adapting all the outcome measures used to assess perceptions of tobacco smoking.
Tobacco smokers and e-cigarette users were excluded from analyses (final sample n=1057). Children exposed to glamorous e-cigarette adverts perceived the harms of occasional smoking of one or two tobacco cigarettes to be lower than those in the control group (=-2.13, p=0.033). An updated meta-analysis comprising three studies with 1935 children confirmed that exposure to different types of e-cigarette adverts (glamorous, healthful, flavoured, non-flavoured) lowers the perceived harm of occasional smoking of one or two tobacco cigarettes (=3.21, p=0.001).
This study adds to existing evidence that exposure to e-cigarette adverts reduces children's perceptions of the harm of occasional tobacco smoking.
接触电子烟广告的儿童可能会认为偶尔吸烟的危害比未接触电子烟广告的儿童小。鉴于电子烟广告对吸烟可能存在交叉提示效应，迫切需要确定先前研究中发现的效应在使用更大样本和更强对照条件时是否稳健且可重复。
一项被试间实验，有一个两水平的独立因素，对应参与者接触的广告类型：电子烟的魅力型广告，或与吸烟或吸电子烟无关物品的广告。
11至16岁的英国学童（n = 1449）。
主要结果是对偶尔吸一两支香烟危害的认知。次要结果包括：对经常吸烟危害的认知、吸烟易感性以及对年轻人吸烟流行率的认知。通过调整所有用于评估吸烟认知的结果测量指标来衡量对使用电子烟的认知。
吸烟者和电子烟使用者被排除在分析之外（最终样本n = 1057）。接触魅力型电子烟广告的儿童认为偶尔吸一两支香烟的危害低于对照组（=-2.13，p = 0.033）。一项包含三项研究、1935名儿童的更新荟萃分析证实，接触不同类型的电子烟广告（魅力型、健康型、调味型、非调味型）会降低对偶尔吸一两支香烟危害的认知（=3.21，p = 0.001）。
本研究补充了现有证据，即接触电子烟广告会降低儿童对偶尔吸烟危害的认知。
