a School of Media and Journalism , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill , USA.
b Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill , USA.
J Health Commun. 2018;23(8):735-742. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2018.1523259. Epub 2018 Oct 3.
Use of cigarettes and noncigarette tobacco products (NCTPs) among adolescents and young adults remains high. Strategies to communicate the risks of cigarettes and NCTPs are needed. Online tobacco education is one such strategy; however, there is little guidance for message development. We conducted four focus groups (n = 39) with adolescent and young adult to identify message and delivery preferences for online tobacco education. Participants evaluated three existing tobacco education websites. Transcripts were coded for preferred tobacco education message content, delivery, and willingness to use online tobacco education. Participants preferred novel, concise facts, embedded links to credible sources, and an anti-industry tone for website messages. Participants expressed an aversion to message strategies that relied on scare tactics or attempted to simulate youth media trends (e.g., overuse of hashtags). To increase exposure, participants recommended using social media to drive engagement. Results serve as guidelines for what information adolescents and young adults desire, as well as how they want this information communicated with online tobacco education. Our findings - youth prefer new, fact-based information that is conveyed concisely, with sources, without authoritative tones, and delivered via social media - provides guidance for how to develop online tobacco education for this at-risk population.
青少年和年轻成年人中使用香烟和非香烟烟草制品（NCTP）的情况仍然很高。需要制定策略来传达香烟和 NCTP 的风险。在线烟草教育就是这样一种策略；然而，对于信息的开发几乎没有指导。我们对青少年和年轻成年人进行了四项焦点小组讨论（n=39），以确定在线烟草教育的信息和传递偏好。参与者评估了三个现有的烟草教育网站。对转录本进行了编码，以确定首选的烟草教育信息内容、传递方式以及使用在线烟草教育的意愿。参与者更喜欢新颖、简洁的事实、嵌入可信来源的链接以及反行业的语气。参与者对依赖恐吓策略或试图模拟青年媒体趋势（例如，过度使用标签）的信息策略表示反感。为了增加曝光率，参与者建议使用社交媒体来吸引关注。研究结果为青少年和年轻成年人所期望的信息提供了指导，以及他们希望如何通过在线烟草教育来传达这些信息。我们的研究结果表明，年轻人更喜欢新颖、基于事实的信息，这些信息简洁明了，有来源，语气不权威，通过社交媒体传递，为如何为这一高危人群开发在线烟草教育提供了指导。
