Adolescents’ Perceptions of Harmfulness of Tobacco and Tobacco-like Products in Finland

Abstract

During the recent years, new tobacco and tobacco-like products, e.g., e-cigarettes, have emerged on the market. Adolescents often underestimate health risks in general, including those concerning tobacco. Little is known of adolescents’ perceptions of health risks of the newer products. Our paper compares adolescents’ perceptions of harmfulness of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, snus, water pipes, and nicotine in Finland, a country with a long history of strict tobacco control policy. Online surveys to nationally representative samples of 12–18-year-olds were conducted in 2017 and 2019, with 7578 answering the surveys. Only 3% of boys and 2% of girls did not agree that cigarettes are harmful to health. The percentages were slightly higher for snus (6% and 3%, respectively) and nicotine (12%, 8%) but much higher for e-cigarettes (30%, 22%) and water pipes (36%, 38%). Those who used the product, whose parents were smokers or had lower education, and whose school performance was lower, less often agreed with the harmful health effects of the products. Our results showed that adolescents understood the harmfulness of older tobacco products better than the harmfulness of the newer ones. Our results also showed the need to strengthen health education and fix adolescents’ misperceptions of the health effects of the newer products.

Effectiveness of a Digital Health Game Intervention on Early Adolescent Smoking Refusal Self-Efficacy

“…In this study, improvements in the study outcomes were greatest in terms of sources of snus refusal self-efficacy. Recent studies have shown that adolescents understand the harms of tobacco better than, for example, snus or newer tobacco and nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes or waterpipes ( El-Amin et al, 2022 ; Scheffels et al, 2023 ). Thus, the Fume health game intervention may be more effective with respect to newer tobacco and nicotine products, the harmful health effects of which are less well understood by adolescents.…”

“…Thus, the Fume health game intervention may be more effective with respect to newer tobacco and nicotine products, the harmful health effects of which are less well understood by adolescents. At the same time, adolescent experimentation with snus and e-cigarettes is common in the Nordic countries ( Cerrai et al, 2022 ; El-Amin et al, 2022 ; Raitasalo et al, 2022 ). This suggests that there may be a need to further strengthen the health education perspective on newer tobacco and nicotine products in the Fume intervention.…”

Use of and Beliefs toward Novel Tobacco and Nicotine Products among Portuguese University Students: A Pandemic Survey

“…University students are particularly vulnerable to initiating psychoactive substance use, including tobacco, as university represents a transitional phase where social identities are developed and individuals face new challenges and peer pressure [7]. Moreover, many young individuals underestimate the risks associated with tobacco use and perceive themselves as invulnerable to its harms [8]. This phase often marks the transition from experimentation to regular tobacco use, with young adults developing nicotine dependence.…”