We assigned 564 British children to one of three groups where they either saw: adverts depicting e-cigarettes as glamorous; adverts depicting e-cigarettes as healthier alternatives to tobacco cigarettes; or no adverts (control group).
Children shown the adverts were no more or less likely than the control group to perceive tobacco smoking as appealing and all three groups understood that smoking more than ten cigarettes a day was harmful.
However, both groups of children exposed to the e-cigarette adverts, both healthy and glamorous, were less likely to believe that smoking one or two tobacco cigarettes occasionally was harmful.
What is the impact of e-cigarette adverts on children’s perceptions of tobacco smoking? An experimental study. Petrescu, D, Vasiljevic, M, Pepper, JK, Ribisl, KM, Marteau, TM.
