Use of existing data to develop new tobacco control strategi
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: To improve the outlook for a healthy population, the public health community continues to develop behavioral interventions aimed at encouraging smokers to quit and at discouraging nonsmokers from starting. To focus these efforts, further information concerning the effectiveness of past and existing strategies is need to refine current and develop new more effective interventions. Also, further research into the nature of the processes of smoking uptake and smoking cessation is necessary. Particularly, effective interventions are needed to counteract the influence of tobacco advertising and promotions on adolescent smoking uptake.
 
 
 
 
 
 We propose to investigate topics related to these issues using large population public-use survey data sets collected both nationally and in California. Much can be learned from secondary analyses of the data from large population surveys that included questions about smoking behavior. While longitudinal data sets provide the most fruitful setting for analyzing influences on smoking behavior, the opportunities for hypothesis generation resulting from the analysis of cross-sectional data are also very important. Although no data collection is proposed for this work, as new data sources become available, they will be carefully examined for material relevant to issues already identified or for material relevant to potential new areas of investigation. Our experienced interdisciplinary team includes psychologists, a health economist, statisticians, epidemiologists and health communications experts. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Topics currently identified for investigation include:
 
 
 
 
 
 Tobacco control policy evaluation – Examine the impact of clean indoor air policies in the workplace and as applied voluntarily in the home on adult and adolescent smoking behavior, evaluate the effect of California’s January 1, 1999 $0.50/pack excise tax increase and industry price increases on cigarette consumption trends, and smokers’ (both adults’ and adolescents’) tax avoidance behavior and concerns about the price of cigarettes, further examine adolescents’ sources of and access to cigarettes, identify and explore any association between compliance with smokefree school policies and adolescent smoking.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Smoking initiation – Explore role of curiosity in becoming susceptible to smoking, determine how long an adolescent needs to refrain from tobacco use before the probability of future established smoking is very low, explore report of smoking at least 100 cigarettes in lifetime as a population measure of nicotine dependence in youth, relate rapidity of the smoking uptake process to future level of addiction, characterize California adolescents’ use of other tobacco products such as cigars and bidis, determine the effect of tobacco advertising/promotions on transitions from experimentation to established smoking, determine whether the demise of Joe Camel has affected adolescents’ nomination of the brand of their favorite advertisement, relate marketing theory to creation of demand for cigarettes among adolescents.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Smoking cessation – Adapt measure of the incidence of smoking initiation to the setting of smoking cessation and characterize trends in the incidence of smoking cessation in demographic subgroups of the population and according to important tobacco control policy events and dissemination of information on the health effects of smoking, relate availability of nicotine replacement to its use and quitting success, examine use of low tar/nicotine cigarettes as a harm reducing alternative to quitting, characterization of the smoking cessation process in adolescent smokers. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The product of this research and the primary dissemination of the findings will be a number of peer-reviewed articles (goal &gt;6/year) accepted into the major medical and public health journals. It is also anticipated that the important research findings will be presented at a number of scientific meetings.