Testing Legally Feasible Options at Retail Point of Sale - Prices and Posters
Phase: NA
Conditions: Tobacco Use
Sponsor: RAND

Testing Legally Feasible Options Studies 2/3 
NCT05604508 
November 6, 2024 
 

Study Protocol 
Study objective.   The overall objective of this research is to experimentally evaluate 
legally viable approaches to reducing the impact of the POS retail environment on 
adolescent risk of using four classes of tobacco products: cigarettes, ENDS, smokeless 
tobacco, and LCCs.  This study will be investigating regulations for four classes of 
tobacco products (cigarettes, e-cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, little cigars/cigarillos). 
Study 2 and study 3 (out of 3 studies), occurring concurrently, will examine whether 
changing the number and price content of posters on the outside doors at POS reduced 
adolescents' tobacco use risk.  The study took place in the RAND StoreLab, a life-sized 
replica of a convenience store.  
 
Study design.  The experimental conditions that we will compare in this study are the 
RSL displaying a larger number of tobacco posters (16 posters total) versus the RSL with 
a smaller number of tobacco posters (8 posters total); and the RSL displaying tobacco 
posters with price discount information on them versus the RSL displaying tobacco 
posters with no price discount information on them.   
 
Methods.  The study was approved by the RAND Human Subjects Protection 
Committee. Young people were recruited from the community through standard 
advertising campaigns.  Interested individuals completed a telephone screening to 
determine eligibility.  Eligible individuals completed informed consent.  Participants 
completed a baseline questionnaire that assessed demographics, tobacco product 
cognitions, smoking and tobacco use, and convenience store shopping habits.  
Participants were then randomized to one of the three experimental conditions.  They 
were provided with a $20 (fake) RSL gift card and asked to shop in the RSL for whatever 
they wanted, for as long as they wanted.  They were asked to purchase at least one item 
and check-out and pay for the item(s) as they would in any convenience store.  A 
confederate who was not involved in the consent or survey process served as the cashier. 
This cashier scanned the selected items for a total price, scanned the gift card, and 
bagged the items.  Although no participants attempted to purchase tobacco from the 
RSL in this study, any such attempts would have been met by the cashier with a request 
for age identification and the purchase attempt would have been declined (i.e., because 
no participants were > 21 years old).   After exiting the RSL, participants completed the 
dependent measures.  They then: underwent a graduated debriefing; were asked to 
guess the study’s purpose; and were told that they would be unable to retain the items 
they selected from the RSL.  Participants then viewed a short tobacco media literacy 
video and received printed smoking prevention materials. Finally, they received 
compensation for participating. 
 
Statistical analysis plan 
First, we evaluated whether randomization distributed pre-shopping baseline 
characteristics evenly across the experimental conditions.  These univariable analyses 
used either t-tests or chi-squared tests to evaluate significance (depending on variable 
distribution).  Next, we used logistic regression to evaluate the relationship between the 
experimental conditions and post-RSL shopping risk of using cigarettes; ENDS LCCs, 
and smokeless tobacco.  Models adjusted for age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, 
lifetime tobacco use, and baseline tobacco use risk.