Who uses cigarette price promotions in the U.S.? examining the combined effect of social identities

Introduction: Tobacco industry offers price promotions to promote cigarette smoking. Several social identities (e.g., women, people with low socioeconomic status) are independently associated with exposure and use of these promotions. We examined how combinations of social identities relate to use of cigarette price promotions.

Methods: We analyzed data from adults who reported current cigarette smoking and purchased their own cigarettes in the 1995-2019 U.S. Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (n = 35,749). We applied a statistical-learning boosting algorithm followed by weighted logistic regression models with 3-way interactions to identify combinations of social identities related to cigarette price promotion use.

Results: This analysis revealed that use of cigarette price promotions varied greatly by combinations of social identities. For example, estimated 39.80% of Asian female adults living in the Midwest used these promotions in their last purchase. Meanwhile, estimated 2.80% of Asian male 31-45-year-old adults reported the same behavior. Additionally, American Indian/Alaskan Native peoples were indicated in four of the ten combinations of social identities with highest prevalence of cigarette price promotion use.

Discussion: Our approach allowed for discovery of previously less appreciated social identities (e.g., race/ethnicity) related to high probability of using cigarette price promotions. These findings also revealed how combination of social-identity-related power dynamics may shape use of cigarette price promotions. Adopting this perspective in future surveillance and policy evaluation effort will provide better understanding in commercial tobacco use disparities.