Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, 9037, Tromsø, Norway.
Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O. Box 222 Skoeyen, 0213, Oslo, Norway.
Harm Reduct J. 2020 Jun 5;17(1):36. doi: 10.1186/s12954-020-00380-5.
Using snus (Swedish moist snuff) is less harmful than smoking, but health warning labels (HWLs) on snus products do not reflect this relation. There are few studies on the effects of comparative risk information in snus warning labels. The purpose of this experiment is to examine whether risk perceptions differ after exposure to non-comparative vs. comparative risk information in snus warning labels.
A total of 254 Norwegians aged 19-69 were exposed to pictures of snus packages in one of four HWL conditions: non-comparative EU-based ("Snus is damaging to your health"), control (the text "Snus" only), general comparative risk ("Snus is less damaging to your health than smoking"), or percentage comparative risk ("Snus is 90% less damaging to your health than smoking"). Perceptions of risk from snus use and smoking were measured before (pre) and during (post) exposure to the HWL. Changes from pre to post in (1) perceptions of risk from snus use and (2) perceptions of risk differences from snus use versus smoking were tested in repeated measures ANOVAs with current snus and cigarette use as covariates.
Both the perceived risks from snus use and its perceived risk difference to smoking decreased more in the control and the percentage HWL conditions than in the EU-based HWL condition. When comparing the general comparative risk and the EU-based HWL, a similar difference was found for the perceived risk difference, but not for the separate measure of snus risk. Both the snus risk and risk difference perception decreased more for the percentage than for the general relative risk HWL.
The non-comparative EU-based HWL claiming that "Snus is health damaging" maintains a high level of perceived risk from snus use, while no HWL and the suggested comparative HWLs adjust perceptions of risk in the direction of lower harm from snus use. An HWL describing snus as 90% less harmful than smoking was more effective than a general claim.
使用鼻烟（湿鼻烟）比吸烟的危害小，但鼻烟产品上的健康警示标签（HWL）并没有反映出这种关系。关于比较风险信息在鼻烟警告标签中的作用的研究较少。本实验的目的是检验在接触非比较风险信息与比较风险信息后，对鼻烟风险感知是否存在差异。
共有 254 名年龄在 19-69 岁的挪威人参与了本研究，他们在四种 HWL 条件下暴露于鼻烟包装图片中：非比较的基于欧盟的（“鼻烟有害健康”）、对照（仅文本“鼻烟”）、一般比较风险（“鼻烟对健康的危害小于吸烟”）或百分比比较风险（“鼻烟对健康的危害比吸烟低 90%”）。在暴露于 HWL 之前（前测）和期间（后测），测量了使用鼻烟和吸烟的风险感知。使用当前吸烟情况作为协变量，在重复测量方差分析中检验（1）使用鼻烟的风险感知和（2）使用鼻烟与吸烟的风险差异感知从前测到后测的变化。
在控制和百分比 HWL 条件下，使用鼻烟的感知风险以及使用鼻烟与吸烟的感知风险差异均较欧盟 HWL 条件下降低更多。在比较一般比较风险和欧盟 HWL 时，发现感知风险差异存在类似差异，但使用鼻烟的单独风险衡量指标不存在差异。与一般相对风险 HWL 相比，百分比 HWL 使鼻烟风险和风险差异感知降低更多。
声称“鼻烟有害健康”的非比较欧盟 HWL 维持了较高的鼻烟使用风险感知，而无 HWL 和建议的比较 HWL 调整了对鼻烟使用危害较低的风险感知。将鼻烟描述为比吸烟危害小 90%的 HWL 比一般声明更有效。
