The Trend of Voluntary Warnings in Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Magazine Advertisements.

Ce Shang,Frank Chaloupka

doi:10.3390/ijerph14010062

Abstract

Some manufacturers of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) voluntarily carried health warnings in their advertisements. This study examined these voluntary warnings in magazine ads and plotted their trends between 2012 and early 2015. ENDS magazine ads were obtained through Kantar media and warnings were collected from the Chicago Public Library or the Trinkets and Trash surveillance system. The prevalence of voluntary warnings, warnings with the specific capitalized word “WARNING”, and MarkTen warnings were examined after being weighted using factors related to exposure between January 2012 and March 2015. Five brands (MarkTen, NJOY, MISTIC, and some Blu) carried warnings during the study period. The prevalence of warnings post 2012 that contained a description of nicotine did not significantly increase until the launch of MarkTen, which also happened several months before April 2014 when the U.S. food and drug administration (FDA) published its proposed deeming rule. In addition, none of these warnings met the criteria required by the FDA in the final rules. Voluntary warnings, particularly MarkTen warnings, significantly increased in ENDS magazine ads between 2014 and 2015. It is important to monitor how ENDS manufacturers will comply with the FDA regulation related to warnings and how this regulation will ultimately impact ENDS risk perceptions and use.

Highlights

The prevalence of the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) among U.S high school students had grown from 1.5% in 2013 to 16% in 2015, surpassing the prevalence of conventional cigarette use in this population [1]
Consistent with previous reports [17,23], the data show that ENDS ads frequently appeared in magazines that were appealing to a diverse array of audiences, such as Rolling
After closely examining all ENDS magazine ads, we identified the following five brands that we considered as carrying voluntary warnings: MarkTen, MISTIC, NJOY, and VUSE during the entire study period, and Blu before June 2012 and after October 2014

Summary

Introduction

The prevalence of the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) among U.S high school students had grown from 1.5% in 2013 to 16% in 2015, surpassing the prevalence of conventional cigarette use in this population [1]. The Surgeon General’s report on e-cigarette use among youth and young adults calls for action to protect young people from using e-cigarettes as they pose long-term harm to brain development and respiratory health. They are associated with increased probability of other tobacco use and addiction [2]. Warnings are an effective means to inform about health risks [3]. The evidence on the effectiveness of ENDS warnings is very scarce to date [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion