US adolescents' response to nicotine warning labels in influencer e-cigarette marketing social media posts: a survey-based randomised between-subject experiment.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

E-cigarette promotional posts with misleading nicotine warning labels on social media may lower adolescents' risk perceptions of e-cigarettes.

A between-subject experiment assessed effects of influencers' e-cigarette promotional posts with different nicotine warning labels on adolescents' e-cigarette harm perceptions, susceptibility to e-cigarette use and perceptions of influencer credibility.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 2022, adolescents were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as teenagers, both men and women.

In 2022, adolescents (N=1864, Mage=17 (SD=0.6)) were randomised to view six images and videos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes in one of five experimental conditions: two conditions with a 'tobacco-free nicotine' warning label (placed on an e-cigarette in the post or at the top of the post), two conditions with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nicotine warning label (on an e-cigarette in the post or at the top of the post (control)) and one no-label condition.

Participants rated influencers' credibility (eg, honesty).

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

Because people in this Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Harm perceptions of, and susceptibility to use, e-cigarettes were then assessed.

What Was Measured

A between-subject experiment assessed effects of influencers' e-cigarette promotional posts with different nicotine warning labels on adolescents' e-cigarette harm perceptions, susceptibility to e-cigarette use and perceptions of influencer credibility.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Social Media, Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems, Product Labeling, United States, United States Food and Drug Administration, Nicotine and Vaping.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Advertising and Promotion, Electronic nicotine delivery devices and Public policy.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in 2022, adolescents.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Results are reported in around 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2025 (Tobacco control), a journal based in England.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.