PROJECT SUMMARY
E-cigarette use (vaping) in 18-24-year-olds is a public health crisis. It is an urgent public health
priority to communicate to young adults about the health harm of vaping to stop and prevent
them from vaping. However, effective communication has become challenging in the new age of
health misinformation and low trust in health experts. My goal is to investigate the role of a
trusted source and strategic message presentation to increase young adults’ acceptance of e-
cigarette education messages to impact their behavior. In this two-phased study, I will determine
an optimal source and message presentation type for young adult vapers and non-vapers,
respectively (K99) and examine the effects of messages optimized for source and presentation
on young adults’ vaping cessation and vaping prevention (R00). In phase 1 (K99), I will use a
multi-method approach to examine two source (expert and peer) and two message presentation
types (one-sided and two-sided) to identify the optimal message type for each vaping status
population. First, I will use crowdsourcing testing to collect self-report measures on message
acceptance, source trust, message reactance, and harm perceptions. Second, I will use
psychophysiological testing to measure participants’ eye-tracking, heart rate, and skin
conductance to assess their visual attention, orienting responses, and arousal during message
exposure. I will produce a single dataset integrating the crowdsourced and psychophysiological
data to determine the optimal source and presentation type for vapers and non-vapers. In phase
2 (R00), I will use a text messaging intervention in a randomized trial to examine the behavioral
effects of messages optimized for source and presentation to one’s vaping status (vapers and
non-vapers). Participants in each vaping status will be randomized to either the treatment
(receiving e-cigarette education messages with a source and presentation type optimized to
one’s vaping status) or control arm (receiving non-tobacco health messages) via text messaging
over the course of 6 months. I will examine vaping cessation rates among vapers and vaping
initiation rates among non-vapers. Results will inform the public health communication
campaign development and may apply to other public education campaigns to reduce tobacco
use in young people.
