Perceptions of cigarettes and e-cigarettes: does health literacy matter?

Abstract

Objective

This study assessed the relationship between health literacy, perceptions of traditional and electronic cigarettes, and smoking status among college students.

Participants

Participants (N = 150; M_age= 20.41 years, SD 3.48), included nonsmokers (78%) and smokers (21%) of traditional (12%) and e-cigarettes (17%).

Method

Participants completed a novel questionnaire to assess perceptions of traditional and e-cigarettes, and the Health Literacy Skills Instrument to evaluate health literacy.

Results

Traditional cigarettes were perceived as having a greater negative impact on physical health than e-cigarettes, whereas e-cigarettes were perceived as having a greater positive impact on social-emotional health than traditional cigarettes. Most participants (57%) had below basic health literacy skills.

Conclusions

This study did not find a relationship between health literacy skills and smoking status or smoking perceptions. Further research is needed to investigate correlates of smoking status and perceptions to inform prevention and cessation efforts.

Keywords:

• College students
• e-cigarette
• health behavior
• health literacy
• smoking

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Rachel Albertand several anonymous reviewers for providing helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the the Lebanon Valley College Institutional Review Board.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.