Ramadan Majed, Alsiary Rawiah A, Aboalola Doaa A, Aouabdi Sihem
Population Health Research Section, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center(KAIMRC), King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Ministry of National Guard - Health Affairs, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Department of Cellular Therapy and Cancer Research, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC), King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Ministry of National Guard - Health Affairs, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Tob Use Insights. 2025 Aug 29;18:1179173X241275887. doi: 10.1177/1179173X241275887. eCollection 2025.
The rise in vaping use across high-income countries is driven partly by marketing, advertising, and flavors promoted by e-cigarette producer firms. The current study aim is to examine the potential variation in the relative research volume on vaping products between countries with highest level of tobacco banning internet advertising and those with no ban on tobacco internet advertising. We used weekly relative search volume (RSV) data produced by Google Trends (GT). A total of eight countries included in the study, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. The countries were regrouped into ban in internet advertising countries, and the no bans in internet advertising countries. The trend test indicates a statistically significant upward trend in GT vaping search volume across all the included countries. However, the percentage increase of search volume for the ads no ban group was higher than ban group. There is a statistically significant difference in median between the two group, ( < 0.0007), (median, 6.25 [IQR, 0.103] for the ban in internet advertising countries vs (median 7.5 Interquartile Ranges (IQR), [0.542] for the no bans on internet advertising countries. Countries with stringent bans on online tobacco advertising have shown lower levels of vaping-related search interest, indicating the potential effectiveness of such regulations. Our research underscores the importance of emphasizing comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and sales online could help mitigate the upward trend in vaping interest.
高收入国家电子烟使用量的上升部分是由电子烟生产公司所进行的营销、广告及推广口味所驱动的。本研究的目的是调查在对烟草互联网广告实施最高级别禁令的国家与未对烟草互联网广告实施禁令的国家之间，电子烟产品相关研究量的潜在差异。我们使用了谷歌趋势（GT）生成的每周相对搜索量（RSV）数据。该研究共纳入八个国家，分别是沙特阿拉伯、阿联酋、美国、爱尔兰、新西兰、加拿大、英国和澳大利亚。这些国家被重新划分为互联网广告禁令国家组和无互联网广告禁令国家组。趋势测试表明，在所有纳入国家中，GT电子烟搜索量呈现出具有统计学意义的上升趋势。然而，广告无禁令组的搜索量增长百分比高于禁令组。两组之间的中位数存在统计学显著差异（<0.0007），互联网广告禁令国家组的中位数为6.25[四分位间距（IQR），0.103]，而无互联网广告禁令国家组的中位数为7.5[四分位间距（IQR），0.542]。对在线烟草广告实施严格禁令的国家，与电子烟相关的搜索兴趣水平较低，这表明此类法规具有潜在效力。我们的研究强调了全面禁止烟草在线广告和销售的重要性，这有助于缓解电子烟兴趣的上升趋势。
