Electronic-cigarette (e-cigarette) use (vaping) has increased sharply among U.S. youth and adults, signaling the emergence of a new public health epidemic. While emerging findings suggest that vaping ...may facilitate smoking cessation, it may also result in adverse health effects. Additionally, evolving patterns of vaping behaviors and the introduction of new products compatible with nicotine and marijuana among never and current smokers further complicate the challenge of assessing health effects of these products, devising effective strategies for tobacco regulation, and communicating scientific findings with the public. Social media surveillance of real-time, naturally occurring public conversations about the health effects of vaping offer an opportunity to capture timely insights that complement and extend findings from traditional research methodologies. This dissertation: (1) monitors Twitter discourse about predominant categories of health effects of e-cigarettes over two years (2018 and 2019), (2) examines associations between categories of health effects of e-cigarettes discussed on Twitter and subsequent stance toward e-cigarettes (pro-, anti-, neutral-), (3) explores key topics of discussions pertaining to co-occurring mentions of marijuana, tobacco and e-cigarettes based on the Triangulum framework, which has been adopted by the state of California to investigate the interrelated influences of use of these substances. This dissertation found that: (1) In 2019, Death was most commonly referenced followed by Neurological and Respiratory health effects in 2019. In 2018, Neurological was the most common health effect, followed by Mental Health and Death, (2) Majority of posts were pro-e-cigarettes. Posts pertaining to Neurological health effects were predominantly pro-e-cigarettes followed Mental Health, and Respiratory health effects. Pain was significantly less likely to be pro-e-cigarette compared Mental Health effects, (3) Person tagging was the most predominant topic across all intersections of the Triangulum (marijuana, tobacco and e-cigarettes). Discussions about Illicit products in the marketplace was one of the key topics at in the intersection of e-cigarettes, combustible tobacco, and marijuana, Blunts and Cigars at the intersection of combustible tobacco and marijuana, Product features and undesirable Smell among e-cigarette and marijuana-related conversations, and Flavors among e-cigarette and combustible-related discussions. Future health communication campaigns may consider enhancing awareness of health risks associated with adverse outcomes related to the predominant categories of health effects: Death, Mental Health, and Neurological. Another point of intervention to curb e-cigarette use could be when e-cigarette users discuss health-related concerns linked to a subsequent Pro-Stance towards e-cigarettes online. By examining the intersections of marijuana and other tobacco products, this study offers inputs for designing comprehensive FDA regulations including regulating product features that may be appealing and improving enforcement efforts to curb sales of illicit products. Future public health interventions for tobacco products may warrant including leveraging discussions about undesirable aspects of tobacco use such as the undesirable smell of smoking and adverse health outcomes.
Starting in 2019 policies restricting the availability of flavored e-cigarette products were proposed or implemented in the United States to curb vaping by youth. People took to Twitter to voice ...their opposition, referencing the phrase "Flavors Save Lives." This study documented the emerging themes pertaining to "Flavors Saves Lives" over a 12-month period.
The study period was from May 1, 2019, to May 1, 2020. A stratified sampling procedure supplied 2500 tweets for analysis. Posts were classified by one or more of the following themes: (1) Political Referendum; (2) Institutional Distrust; (3) Individual Rights; (4) Misinformation; (5) THC Vaping is the Real Problem; (6) Smoking Cessation; (7) Adult Use; and (8) Not a Bot. The temporal pattern of tweets over the year was examined.
Political Referendum (76.5%) and Institutional Distrust (31.3%) were the most prominent themes, followed by Not a Bot (11.0%), Individual Rights (10.4%), Adult Use (8.0%), Smoking Cessation (6.6%), Misinformation (5.9%), and THC Vaping is the Real Problem (3.5%). Total tweet frequencies increased in September 2019 and peaked in November 2019 before returning to relatively low numbers. Political Referendum and Institutional Distrust were consistently the most prevalent themes over time.
Twitter posts with the phrase "Flavors Save Lives" commonly discussed voting against political incumbents and mentioned distrust of government representatives. Findings demonstrated the possibility of near real-time Twitter monitoring of public opposition to flavor bans. These data may be valuable for designing tobacco control information campaigns in the future.
(a) Starting in 2019 policies restricting the availability of flavored e-cigarette products were proposed or implemented in the United States to curb vaping by youth. (b) This study content analyzed Twitter posts with the phrase "Flavors Save Lives" from a 12-month period to understand opposition to flavor restrictions. (c) Twitter posts commonly discussed voting against political incumbents and mentioned distrust of government representatives. (d) Findings demonstrated the possibility of near real-time Twitter monitoring of public opposition to flavor bans, and contribute to a more comprehensive assessment of different sub-population's responses to current and proposed tobacco control information policies.
Background: Memes, images or videos with text overlay that embody a concept or belief about the contemporary society, are endemic to Internet culture, are popular among youth and diffuse rapidly ...across social media platforms. E-cigarettes and vaping have grown in popularity in the era of Internet culture however there is little research describing the intersection of memes and vaping. This is an important gap in the literature as memes may be part of the broader online e-cigarette information landscape that can normalize vaping among young people. Memes could also point to emerging trends in product preferences. This study content analyzed memes to identify key themes, characters and vape products depicted therein. Methods: Data were drawn from a sub-reddit devoted to vaping-related memes. Memes were electronically copied from the forum to analyze (n = 527). Using an inductive approach, the research team identified 14 themes. Results: In-group communication (n = 202, 38.33%) was the most predominant theme followed by Critique of vaping regulations and public perceptions (n = 76, 14.42%), and Vape device modifications and hacks (n = 62, 11.76%). Memes included Cartoons (n = 124, 23.53%), Celebrities (n = 75, 14.23%), and Fictional characters (n = 53, 10.06%). Memes referenced Tanks or mods (n = 120, 22.77%), Component parts (n = 96, 18.22%) and E-liquids/Nicotine salts (n = 81, 15.37%). Conclusion: Memes referenced in-group communication and cartoons among other youth friendly images, raising concern about the potential to normalize vaping-related behaviors. Future research should monitor emerging vape devices and determine the impact of memes on attitudes and behaviors among adolescents and young adults. Implications: Given the popularity and reach of memes among youth, continuous monitoring of vaping-related memes may reveal aspects that may be addressed in vaping prevention campaigns.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, FSPLJ, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Cultural trends in the United States, the nicotine consumer marketplace, and tobacco policies are changing.
The goal of this study was to identify and describe nicotine-related topics of conversation ...authored by the public and social bots on Twitter, including any misinformation or misconceptions that health education campaigns could potentially correct.
Twitter posts containing the term "nicotine" were obtained from September 30, 2018 to October 1, 2019. Methods were used to distinguish between posts from social bots and nonbots. Text classifiers were used to identify topics in posts (n=300,360).
Prevalent topics of posts included vaping, smoking, addiction, withdrawal, nicotine health risks, and quit nicotine, with mentions of going "cold turkey" and needing help in quitting. Cessation was a common topic, with mentions of quitting and stopping smoking. Social bots discussed unsubstantiated health claims including how hypnotherapy, acupuncture, magnets worn on the ears, and time spent in the sauna can help in smoking cessation.
Health education efforts are needed to correct unsubstantiated health claims on Twitter and ultimately direct individuals who want to quit smoking to evidence-based cessation strategies. Future interventions could be designed to follow these topics of discussions on Twitter and engage with members of the public about evidence-based cessation methods in near real time when people are contemplating cessation.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
Introduction
E-cigarette advertising exposure is linked to e-cigarette initiation and use. Thus, monitoring trends in e-cigarette advertising practices is important to understand e-cigarette ...use patterns observed over recent years.
Aims and Methods
E-cigarette advertising expenditures (January 2016–July 2021; Numerator Ad Intel) for 154 U.S. market areas were harmonized with U.S. Census sociodemographic data through Nielsen zip code designations by market area. Descriptive statistics and multivariable linear regressions were used to examine trends in e-cigarette advertising expenditures across media outlets and associations between sociodemographic characteristics and e-cigarette advertising over time.
Results
E-cigarette advertising expenditures peaked in 2018/2019, followed by a sharp decline in 2020. Expenditures were concentrated primarily on print (58.9%), TV (20.6%), and radio (14.4%). Major print outlets were Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, and Star magazines. Top TV channels were AMC, Investigation Discovery, and TBS. TV advertisements were purchased commonly during popular movies and TV series (eg King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Walking Dead). Higher expenditures were associated with U.S. market areas that had (1) a larger percentage of non-rural zip codes (radio), (2) smaller male populations (radio), and (3) larger White or Caucasian, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Other or Multiracial populations (radio, print, online display, and online video).
Conclusions
E-cigarette companies advertised in print magazines geared toward males and youth and young adults, radio commercials focused in urban areas with smaller male populations, and nationwide TV commercials. Declines in e-cigarette advertising expenditures in 2020 demonstrate the potential impact that federal policies may have on protecting populations who are at higher risk for tobacco use from predatory advertising practices.
Implications
E-cigarette advertising exposure is associated with the initiation and use of e-cigarettes. This study shows how e-cigarette marketing expenditures in the United States may have targeted specific consumers (eg youth and young adults) between 2016 and 2021. The precipitous drop in advertising expenditures across all outlets during early 2020 corresponds with the implementation of the Tobacco 21 federal policy, the federal enforcement policy to remove most unauthorized flavored e-cigarette cartridges from the U.S. market, preparations for FDA’s premarket review of e-cigarette products, and the decision by several TV broadcast companies to stop showing e-cigarette ads. The potential impact of federal policies may have far-reaching implications for protecting populations who are at high risk for tobacco use and its health consequences.
This study describes key topics of discussions on Twitter at the intersection of vaping and COVID-19 and documents public reactions to announcements from authoritative health agencies. Twitter posts ...containing vaping and COVID-19-related terms were collected from 1 December 2019 to 3 May 2020 (n = 23,103 posts). Text classifiers and unsupervised machine learning were used to identify topics in posts. Predominant topics included COVID-19 Respiratory Health (18.87%), COVID-19 Susceptibility (17.53%), Death (10.07%), Other COVID-19 Health Effects (9.62%), and Severity of COVID-19 (7.72%), among others. Public conversations on topics, such as Severity of COVID-19, Transmission, Susceptibility, Health Effects, Death, and Smoking cessation, were shaped by announcements from U.S. and international health agencies. Armed with the insights from this study, medical providers should be prepared to discuss vaping-related health risks with their patients in the era of COVID-19. Misconceptions around vaping as a protective behavior from, and an effective treatment against, COVID-19 should also be corrected.
Tobacco-related content on social media is generated and propagated by opinion leaders on the Web who disseminate messages to others in their network, including followers, who then continue to spread ...the information. Opinion leaders can exert powerful influences on their followers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors; yet, little is known about the demographic characteristics and tobacco use behavior of tobacco opinion leaders on the Web and their followers, compared with general Twitter users.
In this study, we hypothesized that opinion leaders use more tobacco products and have higher nicotine dependence than the other 2 groups (eg, followers and general Twitter users) and that followers-those who spread messages by opinion leaders-would more likely be in demographic groups that are vulnerable to tobacco marketing influence (eg, young adults and lower educational attainment).
We constructed the social networks of people who tweet about tobacco and categorized them using a combination of social network and Twitter metrics. To understand the characteristics of tobacco opinion leaders and their followers, we conducted a survey of tobacco opinion leaders, their followers, and general Twitter users. The sample included 347 opinion leaders, 567 followers, and 519 general users. The opinion leaders had a median of 1000 followers, whereas followers and general users had fewer than 600 followers.
Opinion leaders were more likely than their followers to report past month use of tobacco products; followers, in turn, were more likely to report past month use of these products than general Twitter users. The followers appeared to be an especially vulnerable group; they tended to be younger (mean age 22.4 years) and have lower education compared with the opinion leaders and general users.
Followers of Twitter tobacco opinion leaders are a vulnerable group that might benefit from antitobacco education to counter the protobacco communications they see on social media.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Where Do People Vape? Insights from Twitter Data Majmundar, Anuja; Allem, Jon-Patrick; Cruz, Tess Boley ...
International journal of environmental research and public health,
08/2019, Letnik:
16, Številka:
17
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
: Emerging evidence suggests that exposure to secondhand and thirdhand aerosol from electronic cigarettes may have serious health risks including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Social media ...data can help identify common locations referenced in vaping-related discussions and offer clues about where individuals vape. These insights can strengthen current tobacco regulations and prioritize new policies to improve public health. This study identified commonly referenced locations in vaping-related discussions on Twitter in 2018.
: Vaping-related posts to Twitter were obtained from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018. Rule-based classifiers categorized each Twitter post into 11 location-related categories (social venues, living spaces, stores, modes of transportation, schools, workplaces, healthcare offices, eateries, correctional facilities, religious institutions, and miscellaneous) using a data dictionary of location-related keywords (
= 290,816).
: The most prevalent category was social venues (17.9%), followed by living spaces (16.7%), stores (15.9%), modes of transportation (15.5%), schools (14.9%), and workplaces (11.9%). Other categories pertained to: healthcare offices (2.0%), eateries (1.2%), correctional facilities (0.7%), and religious institutions (0.4%).
: This study suggests that locations related to socialization venues may be priority areas for future surveillance and enforcement of smoke-free air policies. Similarly, development and enforcement of similar policies at workplaces, schools and multi-unit housing may curb exposure to secondhand and thirdhand aerosol among the public.
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