Differential Associations Between Anti-Tobacco Industry Attitudes and Intention to Quit Smoking Across Young Adult Peer Crowds

Abstract

Purpose: To compare the relationship between anti-tobacco industry attitudes and intention and attempts to quit smoking across 6 young adult peer crowds. Design: A cross-sectional bar survey in 2015. Setting: Seven US cities (Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Nashville, Oklahoma City, San Diego, San Francisco, and Tucson). Participants: Two thousand eight hundred seventeen young adult bar patrons who were currently smoking. Measures: Intention to quit in the next 6 months and having made a quit attempt in the last 12 months were binary outcomes. Anti-industry attitudes were measured by 3 items indicating support for action against the tobacco industry. Peer crowd affiliation was measured using the I-Base Survey. Analysis: Adjusted multivariable logistic regression models examined the association between anti-industry attitudes and the outcomes for the total sample and for each peer crowd. Results: Overall, anti-industry attitudes were positively associated with both intention to quit (odds ratio [OR] = 1.37, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.24–1.52) and attempt to quit (OR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.03–1.27). Intriguingly, the relationship between anti-industry attitudes and intention to quit differed by peer crowd affiliation, with significant associations for Homebody, Partier, Hipster, and Hip Hop, but not for Young Professional and Country. Conclusions: Developing health communication messages that resonate with unique peer crowd values can enhance the relevance of public health campaigns. Tobacco control practitioners should tailor anti-industry messages to promote intention to quit smoking among the highest risk young adults.

Non-daily Cigarette Smoking: Stability and Transition to Abstinence in Young Adults

“…Some studies have suggested that anti-tobacco messages from a variety of sources, conflict with friends and family about smoking, and home restrictions on use are associated with greater intent to quit. [39][40][41] Among young adults, greater intent to quit has been associated with negative perceptions of the tobacco industry 42 and with more frequent exercise. 38 However, the extent to which most of these characteristics can modify the intent to quit is uncertain.…”

From Cancer Epidemiology to Policy and Practice: the Role of a Comprehensive Cancer Center

“…Finally, young adults have higher tobacco use rates, including menthol cigarette use [ 31 ], but few use evidence-based smoking cessation services such as the Quitline [ 32 ], which consistently receives only three or fewer calls per month from young adults in San Francisco. The Task Force dramatically increased access for young adults to evidence-based smoking cessation counseling through the launch of 58 smoking cessation groups on social media, enrolling 862 participants over 40 months (average 21.5 per month) with 41% of those completing the program reporting smoking abstinence [ 29 , 30 , 33 ]. In March 2020, the smoking cessation groups were adapted to support adolescents quitting vaping on Instagram in a pilot program that has supported the development of a randomized trial launched in July 2021.…”

Peer Crowd Identification of Young and Early Middle Adulthood Customers at Vape Shops

“…Within the last five years, more peer crowd identification research has examined young adults to investigate tobacco and electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use, primarily among bar patrons. In these newer studies, counter-culture young adults (e.g., hipster, hip hop, skaters, gamers) were found to be most likely to use tobacco products (e-cigarettes or combustibles), particularly compared to young professionals (Kim et al, 2020;Lisha et al, 2016;Moran et al, 2017;Nguyen et al, 2019). For example, Lisha et al (2016) found that "partier," "country," and "homebody" category young adult crowds (18-26 years old, mean = 24 years old) were more likely to use tobacco products (e-cigarettes or combustibles) than the young professional group.…”