Exploring smokers' perceptions of differing smokeless tobacco news messages

描述（由申请人提供）：无烟烟草产品（ETM）是烟草控制界减少危害辩论的中心，一些人认为ETM对吸烟者来说是一种危害较小的替代品，另一些人担心这种宣传可能会被误解为ETM是“安全的”，导致有害的人群水平后果。最近烟草的增长和卷烟公司销售新型烟草产品作为吸烟替代品，使辩论成为一个更相关的公共卫生问题。此外，2009年的法律赋予FDA监管烟草的权力，为公司未来可能将这些产品作为“修改后的风险”进行营销创造了一条道路，但FDA才刚刚开始制定这些新政策。尽管事实上，缺乏共识，就如何沟通的相对风险，我们的研究表明，有关的风险降低潜力的信息，目前正在通过新闻媒体传达，因此可能已经影响人们的风险知识和信念。我们的研究还表明，新闻中的风险信息是以各种不同的方式表达的。考虑到吸烟者对吸烟的风险认知和态度的潜在影响，需要研究这些不同的风险信息是否以及如何影响读者，特别是吸烟者。因此，本混合方法R 03研究旨在响应PAR-12-035，以更好地了解吸烟者对新闻报道中提供的吸烟信息的解释和潜在反应。具体来说，我们将1）对吸烟者进行深入访谈，以探索他们对不同戒烟新闻故事信息和风险信息的解释，2）实验性地研究不同戒烟信息对吸烟者对新戒烟产品的看法和兴趣的影响。总的来说，这项研究可以提供重要的见解，了解烟草新闻信息对公众的潜在影响，这是一个未充分研究的领域，以及吸烟者如何更普遍地对不同的吸烟风险信息做出反应的有价值的线索，这是FDA表示感兴趣的一个及时和政策相关的研究领域。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Smokeless tobacco products (SLT) are at the center of a harm reduction debate in the tobacco control community, with some arguing that SLT can be a less harmful alternative for smokers and others worried that such promotion may be misinterpreted as meaning that SLT is "safe" resulting in harmful population level consequences. The recent growth of SLT and marketing of new types of SLT products by cigarette companies as smoking alternatives has made the debate a more relevant public health issue. In addition, the 2009 law giving the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco created a path for companies to potentially market these products in the future as "modified risk," but the FDA is just beginning to develop these new policies. Despite the fact that consensus is lacking on how to communicate the relative risks of SLT, our research indicates that messages about SLT's risk reduction potential are currently being communicated through the news media and thus may already be influencing people's SLT knowledge and beliefs. Our research also indicates that SLT risk information in the news is expressed in a variety of different ways. Given the potential influence of SLT information on smokers' risk perceptions and attitudes towards trying or switching to SLT, research is needed to investigate if and how these varying risk messages might impact readers, especially smokers. Therefore, this mixed methods R03 research study, in response to PAR-12-035, aims to better understand smokers' interpretations of and potential reactions to SLT information presented in news stories. Specifically we will 1) conduct in-depth interviews with smokers to explore their interpretations of different SLT news story messages and risk information and 2) experimentally examine the impact of different SLT messages on smokers' perceptions of and interest in new SLT products. Overall, this research can provide important insight into the potential impact of tobacco news messages on the public, an understudied area, and valuable clues as to how smokers might respond to different SLT risk messages more generally, a timely and policy relevant research area in which the FDA has expressed interest.