Reasons for e-cigarette use and responses to the FDA nicotine addiction e-cigarette warning among young adults who...

To test the relationships between reasons for using e-cigarettes and responses to the FDA nicotine addiction warning and explore differences in associations by exclusive e-cigarette use versus dual use of e-cigarettes and cigarettes.

In a within-subjects experiment, young adults who currently used e-cigarettes (N = 353) evaluated 11 e-cigarette advertisements that included the U.S. FDA text addiction warning on a range of cognitive and affective outcomes such as worry about health harms, discouragement to use e-cigarettes, and perceptions of e-cigarettes as a healthy alternative to cigarettes; and they answered questions about their reasons for using e-cigarettes.

Those who dual use reported stronger reasons to reduce cigarettes relative to those using e-cigarettes exclusively. The two groups did not differ on social context or sensory experience reasons for using e-cigarettes. Stronger endorsement of any reason for use was associated positively with higher cognitive and emotional responses across most responses to the FDA e-cigarette warning, and this was most consistent for social context reasons to use. Use group moderated this relationship, particularly for endorsement of social context reasons, such that those who exclusively used had stronger responses to the warning.

Use motivations could be helpful in tailoring health communications for youth and young adults so that they help mitigate e-cigarette marketing strategies that target this vulnerable population.

Young adults who use e-cigarettes do so for a number of reasons. Reasons for using e-cigarettes may contribute to how young adults who use e-cigarettes respond to e-cigarette health warnings. Consideration of reasons to use e-cigarettes could contribute to approaches to educate and inform about health harms of e-cigarettes.