Understanding the Associations Between Adolescents’ Exposure to E-Cigarette Information and Vaping Behavior Through the Theory of Planned Behavior

ABSTRACTABSTRACTAdolescents have actively looked for and passively scanned information about electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) from a variety of media and interpersonal sources. Despite the evidence that exposure to e-cigarette information is associated with youth's increased vaping intention, there is a paucity of scholarship that differentiates the sources where adolescents obtain e-cigarette information in their investigation, which limits our understanding of the unique association between vaping intention and e-cigarette information acquisition from specific sources. In addition, few studies have systematically examined the mechanism of the aforementioned associations. To fill the gap, an online national survey on a panel of adolescents between 13 to 17 years old was conducted. After controlling for potential confounders, several significant indirect effects were observed. Specifically, adolescents' vaping intention was negatively associated with e-cigarette information seeking from health professionals but positively with e-cigarette information exposure from family and friends, outdoors advertisements, social media, and other online channels, with the theory of planned behavior (TPB) constructs mediating these relationships. The findings not only contribute to the body of scholarship on TPB but also provide important suggestions for regulating outdoor and online e-cigarette information and designing persuasive interventions and campaigns. AcknowledgementsThe author thanks Ms. Elizabeth Dubson and Ms. Aizi Chang for their great help with literature search and data management respectively.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe research reported in this manuscript was supported by the Texas Christian University Research and Creative Activities Fund [60866]