‘It Brings Light to What you Really Put into Your Body’: a Focus Group Study of Reactions to Message
Friday, May 21, 2021
Posted by: Natalia Gromov
Duong
HT, Loud EE, Thrasher JF, et al.
‘It Brings Light to What
you Really Put into Your Body’: a Focus Group Study of Reactions to Messages
about Nicotine Reduction in Cigarettes.
Tobacco Control Published Online First: 16 April 2021. doi:
10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-056312.
Objective.
In 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a proposed
regulation to lower nicotine in cigarettes to minimally addictive levels to
help smokers quit. We sought to explore effective message strategies
communicating about nicotine reduction in cigarettes across the different key
audiences that the regulation is most likely to influence.
Methods.
We designed four types of messages: efficacy messages, risk messages, a message
about alternative sources of nicotine and a compensation message. Sixteen
virtual focus groups were conducted in Atlanta and San Francisco in April–May
2020. Data were analysed in NVivo 12.0 using a thematic analysis approach.
Findings.
Exclusive smokers were receptive to both efficacy messages and risk messages.
Dual users were the only group that was open to resorting to alternative
sources of nicotine. Former smokers were critical of these messages as
promoting the new kinds of cigarettes and potentially encouraging initiation
and relapse of smoking. Non-smokers felt that efficacy messages downplayed the
risks of smoking and did not scare people away from smoking. Presenting
information that very low nicotine cigarettes (VLNCs) still contain harmful
chemicals made smokers question continued smoking in the absence of nicotine
and view VLNCs as harmful.
Conclusions.
Messages communicating about nicotine reduction in cigarettes might help to motivate
smokers to quit and can correct the misperceptions that VLNCs are less harmful.
The FDA should consider specific target audiences and use different messages
that complement each other in communicating about this regulation.
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