Neuroimaging Approaches to Improve Prediction of Smoking Initiation and Nicotine Escalation in Young Adult ENDS Users

Summary

180 young adult vapers who are not current smokers will participate in a baseline functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, prospectively linked to a 1-year randomized controlled trial. Baseline fMRI tasks will probe critical neurocognitive markers with high potential to account for individual differences in nicotine use prognosis and responsiveness to anti-vaping public service announcements (PSAs). Participants will be assigned randomly to a survey-only control condition, or one of two intervention orders, Regular PSA then Flavor PSA, and Flavor PSA then Regular PSA (n=60 each) in a 1-year counterbalanced crossover design. Every week intervention groups will receive anti-vaping PSAs either do not specifically address harms associated with vaping flavors (regular PSAs) or PSAs with a theme focusing on the harms of flavored vape products (flavor PSAs). Participants of the intervention groups will switch PSA exposure condition after 6 months. Their evaluations of the PSAs will be assessed with brief weekly online surveys. The links to the weekly online surveys will be sent via e-mail and text which allow them to access the surveys using any device with an internet browser. During the survey, the PSA of that week will first be displayed to PSA groups (n=120), followed by a query to provide message evaluation. Afterward, the survey questions will also assess their e-cigarette, cigarette, other tobacco use, and nicotine dependence, during the past week. The control group (n=60) will complete the surveys without viewing PSAs. In-person assessments at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months will biochemically confirm nicotine exposure.

Conditions

• Message Exposure (Sequence: Regular Then Flavor)
• Message Exposure (Sequence: Flavor Then Regular)
• No Message Exposure (Control Condition)

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure to Anti-Vaping Messages (generic themes then flavor-specific themes)

Messages are in the format of public service announcement (PSA) images that contain both textual (1-2 brief sentences) and illustrative visual components. The messages are designed to educate the participants about the harms and costs associated with e-cigarette use (e.g., negative health consequences, undesirable social perceptions, etc.). Half of the messages focus specifically on the harms and costs associated with using flavored vape products, while the other half address vaping harms broadly (i.e., not specifically focus on those related to flavored vaping). Participants in this arm will receive anti-vaping messages through emails and text messages every week. Specifically, over the course of a year, during the first six months, they will receive generic/regular PSAs that address vaping harms more broadly; during the second six months, they will receive flavor-specific PSAs that address vaping harms specifically associated with the use of flavored vape products.

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure to Anti-Vaping Messages (flavor-specific themes then generic themes)

Messages are in the format of public service announcement (PSA) images that contain both textual (1-2 brief sentences) and illustrative visual components. The messages are designed to educate the participants about the harms and costs associated with e-cigarette use (e.g., negative health consequences, undesirable social perceptions, etc.). Half of the messages focus specifically on the harms and costs associated with using flavored vape products, while the other half address vaping harms broadly (i.e., not specifically focus on those related to flavored vaping). Participants in this arm will receive anti-vaping messages through emails and text messages every week. Specifically, over the course of a year, during the first six months, they will receive flavor-specific PSAs that address vaping harms specifically associated with the use of flavored vape products; during the second six months, they will receive generic/regular PSAs that address vaping harms more broadly.

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure to Anti-Vaping Messages (no message exposure)

Participants will not receive any message intervention in this arm.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Georgia

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

29 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-07-15

Primary Completion

2026-07-31

Completion

2026-07-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations