Trial reportAddictive behaviors2020
Evaluating the actual and perceived effectiveness of E-cigarette prevention advertisements among adolescents.
Trial report in Addictive behaviors, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effectiveness of vaping prevention campaign messages on cognitive and behaviorally proximal outcomes among adolescents and young adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Interventions to prevent or cease electronic cigarette use in children and adolescents.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Can Extant Vaping Prevention Message Experiments Tell Us Something About What Works? A Response to O'Keefe.Health communication · 2023Pooled it
- Do Vaping Prevention Messages Impact Adolescents and Young Adults? A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies.Health communication · 2023Pooled it
- Designing Social Media Health Warnings for Teenagers and Young Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA health forum · 2026Trial
- Tailoring e-Cigarette Health Messages by Vaping Status: How Source and Message Presentation Type Shape Young Adults' Perceptions.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2026Trial
- Do Perceived Message Effectiveness Ratings Change in Response to Repeated Message Exposures?Health communication · 2025Trial
- Understanding Potential Mechanisms of Vaping Prevention Messages: A Mediation Analysis of the Real Cost Campaign Advertisements.Health education & behavior : the official publication of the Society for Public Health Education · 2025Trial
- The Development and Testing of a Point-of-Sale E-Cigarette Health Communication Campaign.Health communication · 2024Trial
- Examining the Longitudinal Relationship Between Perceived and Actual Message Effectiveness: A Randomized Trial.Health communication · 2024Trial
- Does source matter? Examining the effects of health experts, friends, and social media influencers on young adult perceptions of Instagram e-cigarette education messages.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2024Trial
- Effects of a Social Media Intervention on Vaping Intentions: Randomized Dose-Response Experiment.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Trial
- Communicating the benefits of quitting smoking on mental health increases motivation to quit in people with anxiety and/or depression.Addictive behaviors · 2024Trial
- Effects of 4 Interpretive Front-of-Package Labeling Systems on Hypothetical Beverage and Snack Selections: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2023Trial
- Unintended Consequences: Testing the Effects of Adolescent-Targeted Anti-vaping Media Upon Adult Smokers.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2023Trial
- Responses to pictorial versus text-only cigarillo warnings among a nationally representative sample of US young adults.Tobacco control · 2023Trial
- The Impact of The Real Cost Vaping and Smoking Ads across Tobacco Products.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2023Trial
- Should messages discourage sugary drinks, encourage water, or both? A randomized experiment with U.S. parents.Preventive medicine · 2023Trial
- Designing Effective Alcohol Warnings: Consumer Reactions to Icons and Health Topics.American journal of preventive medicine · 2023Trial
- Effects of Vaping Prevention Messages on Electronic Vapor Product Beliefs, Perceived Harms, and Behavioral Intentions among Young Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe efficacy of e-cigarette prevention ads among adolescents has seldom been studied. We examined the impact of ads from the The Real Cost vaping prevention media campaign on what adolescents think and believe about vaping. We also sought to test whether perceived message effectiveness (PME) served as a proxy for ad impact.
methodsParticipants were 543 U.S. adolescents ages 13-17. In an online experiment, we randomized participants to either: 1) persuasive e-cigarette prevention video ads from the Food and Drug Administration's The Real Cost campaign that was targeted to adolescents or 2) information-only e-cigarette harms control videos (control condition). Participants in each condition viewed 2 videos in a random order. After ad exposure, the survey assessed PME (message and effects perceptions), risk beliefs about vaping, attitudes toward vaping, and intentions to vape.
resultsThe FDA's The Real Cost ads led to higher beliefs about the harms of vaping (p < .001), more negative attitudes toward vaping (p < .001), and lower intentions to vape (p < .05) compared to the control videos. The Real Cost ads also scored higher on both message perceptions (p < .001) and effects perceptions (p < .001) compared to control videos. Effects perceptions were associated with all three outcomes (all ps < 0.001, adjusting for both types of PME and covariates), but message perceptions did not offer additional predictive value.
conclusionsExposure to The Real Cost vaping prevention ads gave adolescents a more negative view of vaping and lowered their intentions to vape compared to control videos. Effects perceptions may be superior to message perceptions as a proxy for e-cigarette prevention ad impact.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.