Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) Use and Access in Florida's Tobacco Regulatory Environment

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PROJECT ABSTRACT While cigarette smoking and smokeless tobacco use has declined among American youth over time, use of electronic cigarettes – or vaping – among youth has increased tremendously. The recent vaping-related acute lung injuries and deaths as well as the first animal studies linking vaping to cancer have highlighted the need to respond to e-cigarette use among youth. In Aim 1, the project will assess the relationship between spatial density and proximity of tobacco/e-cigarette retailers around schools and county-level youth e-cigarette use and marketing exposure in Florida, overall and by county-level sociodemographic characteristics and racial/ethnic segregation. In Aim 2, it will qualitatively explore where, how, why, and from whom youth access e-cigarettes, interactions with tobacco/e-cigarette retailers, exposure to e-cigarette marketing, and combined substance use, as well as whether these factors differ across neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics using participatory mapping and focus groups. Finally, in Aim 3, I will leverage a natural experiment in tobacco regulation across three Florida counties to assess whether T21+TRL is more effective in reducing youth ENDS use and marketing exposure than T21 alone using quasi-experimental methods – comparative interrupted time series and difference-in-differences analysis. Dr. Zinzi Bailey is an Assistant Scientist in the Jay Weiss Institute for Health Equity at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. As a Black woman in academia where Black women are underrepresented, Dr. Bailey seeks a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award to Promote Diversity to gain the skills, experience, and preliminary data needed for an independent, policy-focused research program in translational cancer disparities research. Dr. Bailey will integrate her background in social epidemiology and tobacco smoking behavior with methods and theories that capture the socio-ecological complexity of tobacco regulation and its potential impact across communities. To achieve this goal, Dr. Bailey proposes to gain the training and experience in policy analysis using quasi- experimental designs, geographic information systems, and participatory research through mentorship, coursework, workshops/seminars, and scientific meetings. Her career development objectives include (1) obtaining training in quasi-experimental designs for policy analysis, (2) advancing my expertise in assessing local, state, and federal tobacco policies and regulations, (3) receiving formal policy-relevant training in geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial econometrics, and (4) developing methodological training on qualitative, participatory methods. This study will lay the groundwork for a tobacco regulation-oriented research program that blends multiple methods of policy analysis to guide the translation of disparities-focused research to evidence-based policy.