In Vivo Assessment of Young Adults' Exposure to Cigarette Advertising

描述(申请人提供)：有充分的证据表明，在18岁以下的儿童和青少年中，接触香烟广告和吸烟之间存在关系。记录这种关系的研究非常不同。它们的范围从对小样本的高度控制的实验实验室研究，到对大量不同的初中生和高中生的自然主义准实验研究。然而，这种设计和方法的多样性代表了这篇文献的一个弱点：研究人员在选择研究设计、方法和方法时必须进行内在的权衡，使得很难得出关于香烟广告效果的准确结论。此外，烟草行业已将营销注意力转向大学生，因此，现有的关于香烟广告效果的文献在多大程度上可以推广到年龄较大的青少年，这一点尚不清楚。修订后的(A1)项目的总体目标是采用生态瞬时评估(EMA)来解决这些问题。EMA使用掌上电脑“实时”和“真实生活”地监测心理现象。它提供了实验室环境的测量精度，以及自然准实验田野研究的外部有效性。因此，它有很大的潜力来解决这一调查领域的方法差距，并显著改善围绕香烟广告和吸烟行为之间关系的证据的强度，在研究不足的人群中。然而，EMA还没有被用于调查香烟广告和吸烟之间的关系。因此，使这一方法适应这一调查领域存在真正的挑战，需要认真解决这些挑战，然后才能在更大范围内使用。这个发展中的R21项目的第一阶段将涉及一系列形成性研究，旨在使EMA适用于研究大学生接触香烟广告。来自这些形成性研究的数据将被用于该项目的最后阶段：EMA的短期实地测试，以研究大学生接触香烟广告的情况。现场测试的参与者将使用EMA记录他们在30天的间隔内接触到的所有香烟广告和营销，并在每次广告接触后立即回答有关他们对吸烟的想法和感受的问题。此外，参与者将在评估间隔期间的不同时间点被随机提示他们对吸烟的想法和感受。实际上，这项实地测试将采用病例对照设计，将广告曝光事件的“案例”与随机抽样的非曝光事件的“对照”进行对比。将收集有关EMA使用的可行性、障碍和促进剂的数据，并将使用现场测试的暴露数据来促进对暴露频率及其在大学样本中的体内影响的理解。这项研究将为该领域提供关于如何最有效地评估和模拟香烟广告对吸烟的影响的新信息，并为开展更大规模、更长期的研究提供信息。与公共健康相关：烟草行业重新将广告和营销努力的重点放在了年轻人，特别是大学生身上。了解大学生在多大程度上受到了这些营销活动的影响，以及它们对他们的吸烟态度和行为产生了什么影响，这一点很重要。了解香烟广告如何以及为什么会影响大学生，对于制定针对大学层面的更有效的吸烟预防计划至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is ample evidence to suggest that a relationship exists between exposure to cigarette advertising and smoking in children and adolescents under the age of 18. Studies documenting this relationship have been extremely varied. They have ranged from highly controlled experimental laboratory studies of small select samples to naturalistic quasi-experimental studies of large diverse populations of middle and high school students. However, this diversity of design and method represents a weakness of this literature: the inherent trade-offs researchers have had to make in choosing study designs, measures, and approaches make it difficult to draw precise conclusions about cigarette advertising effects. In addition, the tobacco industry has turned its marketing attention toward college students so the extent to which the extant literature on cigarette advertising effects can be generalized to older adolescents is not known. The Overall Aim of this revised (A1) project is to adapt ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to address these questions. EMA uses palmtop computers to monitor psychological phenomenon in "real time" and in "real life". It affords the measurement precision of a laboratory setting, and the external validity of naturalistic quasi-experimental field studies. As such, it has significant potential to address the methodological gaps in this domain of inquiry and to markedly improve on the strength of evidence surrounding the relationship between cigarette advertising and smoking behavior in an understudied population. However, EMA has not been used to investigate the relationship between cigarette advertising and smoking. As such, there are real challenges to adapting this methodology to this domain of inquiry and these challenges need to be carefully addressed before it can be used on a larger scale. The first phase of this developmental R21 project will involve a series of formative studies designed to adapt EMA for studying exposure to cigarette advertising in college students. The data from these formative studies will be used to inform the final phase of this project: a short term field test of EMA for studying exposure to cigarette advertising in college students. Participants in the field test will use EMA to record all of their exposures to cigarette advertising and marketing during a 30 day interval, and answer questions about their thoughts and feelings about smoking immediately after each advertising exposure. In addition, participants will be randomly prompted at various points during the assessment interval about their thoughts and feelings about smoking. In effect, then, this field test will utilize a case control design where "cases" of advertising exposure episodes are contrasted with "controls" of randomly sampled non-exposure episodes. Data on feasibility, and barriers and facilitators to EMA use will be collected and exposure data from the field test will be used to advance an understanding of exposure frequency and its effects in vivo in a college sample. This study will provide new information for the field about how to most effectively assess and model the effects of cigarette advertising on smoking, and inform the conduct of larger, longer term studies. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The tobacco industry has refocused its advertising and marketing efforts on young adults in general and college students in particular. It is important to understand how much college students are being exposed to these marketing efforts, and what effects they have on their smoking attitudes and behaviors. Understanding how and why cigarette advertising affects college students is crucial for informing more effective smoking prevention programs aimed at the university level.