Effect of a State-Level Vaping Prevention Campaign on Beliefs and Behaviors in Young People

Background: Vaping prevention media campaigns have promising effects on harm perceptions but have yet to demonstrate impacts on vaping behaviors in young people. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of Vermont's vaping prevention campaign (Unhyped) on vaping-related beliefs and behaviors.

Methods: Data come from Waves 5 (Winter 2020) and 9 (Winter 2021) (n = 433) of the Policy and Communication Evaluation Vermont study, a longitudinal online cohort study of adolescents and young adults ages 12-25. Analyses examined associations between awareness of Unhyped in 2020 and outcomes in 2020 and 2021. Primary analyses compared participants aged 12-17 (campaign target) who reported awareness of Unhyped to propensity score-matched controls.

Results: In 2020, more adolescents aware of the Unhyped campaign perceived great risk from weekly vaping compared with matched controls (49.3% vs. 24.3%; p = 0.019). Adolescents aware of Unhyped in 2020 were also less likely than matched controls to report willingness to try a vapor product in the next year (15.8% vs. 40.1%; p = 0.048) or use one if offered by a friend (21.4% vs. 49.1%; p = 0.031) in 2021. There was no relationship between brand awareness and vaping behaviors in 2020 or 2021.

Conclusions: Although there were no effects of awareness of Vermont's Unhyped campaign on vaping behaviors, the campaign was effective in altering short-term risk perceptions and reducing susceptibility to vape in adolescents one year later.