E-cigarettes remain popular among youth and young adults. In an effort to develop effective e-cigarette interventions, a recent study assessed student preferences for e-cigarette prevention messages. Participants included middle-school (n=1,166) and high school (n=3,614) students that completed a written survey, as well as college students (n=625) that completed an online survey. Participants reported cigarette and e-cigarette use, as well as preferences for loss- or gain-framed e-cigarette prevention messages focused on one of four themes (financial costs, health risks, addiction potential, and social labeling). Loss-framed messages emphasize the costs of engaging or not engaging in a behavior (e.g. “You spend more money if you use e-cigarettes”). Gain-framed messages emphasize benefits of engaging or not engaging in a behavior (e.g. “You save money by not using e-cigarettes”). Regardless of grade level, loss-framed messages were preferred for themes related to health risks, addiction potential, and social labeling, while gain-framed messages were preferred for the theme related to financial costs. In addition, lifetime e-cigarette users preferred loss-framed health risk and social labeling messages relative to never e-cigarette users.
Take Away: Findings from this study may help campus prevention specialists compose effective e-cigarette prevention messages for dissemination through social media or other digital platforms. When discussing health risks, addiction potential, and social labeling, consider developing prevention messages related to the costs of using e-cigarettes. When discussing financial costs, consider composing prevention messages related to the benefits of not using e-cigarettes.