Nicotine - Misperceptions, Misinformation, or Disinformation: Difference between revisions

==Consumers==

===2022: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35368082/ Do smokers' perceptions of the harmfulness of nicotine replacement therapy and nicotine vaping products as compared to cigarettes influence their use as an aid for smoking cessation? Findings from the ITC Four Country Smoking and Vaping Surveys]===

*We analyzed data from 1,315 current daily smokers (10+ cigarettes per day) who were recruited at Wave 1 (2016), and who reported making a quit attempt by Wave 2 (2018) of the International Tobacco Control Four Country Smoking and Vaping Surveys in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States.

*Consistent with past studies,our findings confirm that harm perceptions influence nicotine product use, with accurate perceptions associated with greater likelihood of use as a smoking cessation aid, whereas inaccurate perceptions appear to deter their use for this purpose.

===2022: [https://nrgppi.org/recent-research/what-are-people-s-views-about-the-risks-of-vaping What are people’s views about the risks of vaping? Findings from conversations with the public.]===

**Increasing discussions and education in school about ‘negative consequences of vaping’

**Desensitisation to public health messaging about the reduced harm of vaping relative to smoking

===2022: [https://demos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/myths-and-misinformation.pdf Myths and Misinformation: Mapping the barriers to smoking cessation and the uptake of nicotine alternatives]===

*...with 93% of Brits overestimating the health risk of nicotine,...The over 60s and those from the lowest socio economic groups (C2DE) are the most likely to be misinformed...

*Our research has also revealed the scale of misunderstanding around vaping, with 90% of Brits’ responses ‘broadly incorrect’ about its harm compared to tobacco cigarettes; this despite public health evidence asserting that vaping is unlikely to exceed 5% of the harm that comes from smoking cigarettes.

===2022: [https://academic.oup.com/ntr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ntr/ntac088/6562888 Exposure to Negative News Stories About Vaping, and Harm Perceptions of Vaping, Among Youth in England, Canada, and the United States Before and After the Outbreak of E-cigarette or Vaping-Associated Lung Injury (‘EVALI’)]===

*Between 2017 and February–March 2020, youth exposure to negative news stories, and perceptions of vaping harms, increased, and increases were exacerbated during and immediately after ‘EVALI’. By August 2020, exposure to negative news stories returned to 2019 levels, while perceptions of harm were sustained.

===2022: [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1081366/khan-review-making-smoking-obsolete.pdf The Khan review Making smoking obsolete]===

*However, there is lots of confusion, even misinformation, about vaping. The most common relates to its harm. I have spoken to the very best academics and scientists across the country and internationally. They all told me that vaping is far less harmful than smoking.

*In cigarettes, we know that it is not the nicotine that kills you but the other thousands of toxic chemicals such as tar and carbon monoxide. Vapes give smokers the nicotine they crave but protect them from the toxins they would inhale from a cigarette.

===2021: [https://ash.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Use-of-e-cigarettes-vapes-among-adults-in-Great-Britain-2021.pdf Use of e-cigarettes (vapes) among adults in  Great Britain]===

*The main reason given by current smokers for vaping is to cut down (26%) then to help them quit (17%) and to prevent relapse (14%).

*Nearly a third of smokers incorrectly believe vaping is more or equally as harmful as smoking (32% compared to 34% in 2020).  

===2021: Video: [https://vimeo.com/649054668 Depression causes vaping!]===

*This is the first study to explore the effect of exposure to misinformation about e-cigarette harms on Twitter, showing that after brief exposure to tweets that e-cigarettes are as or more harmful than smoking, current smokers may be deterred from using e-cigarettes (measured with intention to purchase e-cigarettes) as a harm reduction strategy. They are also more likely to wrongly believe that e-cigarettes are more harmful than regular cigarettes.  

*The increasing trends of misperceptions about the relative harms of e-cigarettes compared with regular cigarettes are important for public health because perceived harms of e-cigarettes are associated with smokers' willingness to use e-cigarettes6 as a harm reduction strategy.

===2020: [https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01565-2 Association between changes in harm perceptions and e-cigarette use among current tobacco smokers in England: a time series analysis]===

*Between 2014 and 2019 in England, at the population level, monthly changes in the prevalence of accurate harm perceptions among current tobacco smokers were strongly associated with changes in e-cigarette use.

*For every 1% decrease in the mean prevalence of current tobacco smokers who endorsed the belief that e-cigarettes are less harmful than combustible cigarettes, the mean prevalence of e-cigarette use decreased by 0.48%

===2020: [https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/DAT-04-2020-0022/full/html Perceptions of nicotine in current and former users of tobacco and tobacco harm reduction products from seven countries]===

*We observed that the majority of current and previous product users estimated the harmfulness of nicotine and cigarettes alike. This has led to the misled conclusion that nicotine is responsible for the detrimental effects related to combustible tobacco consumption, even though science has found only very limited and often inconclusive evidence to date that nicotine is any more harmful than other legally consumed stimulants.

*Contradictory statements by leading researchers supported by renowned funding agencies and misreporting by the media may further public confusion as people have stated they use the media as a source of health information.

===2019: Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6_4RUTMFuE John Britton takes anti-vaping media to task]===

*E-cigarette Summit 2019

*John Britton, respiratory physician and Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies at the University of Nottingham tells media and medical journals that when they publish hyperbolic stories about the harms of vaping they are sending people back to smoking and early death. Full video of Britton's E-cigarette Summit presentation available at vimeo.com/373905893

===2019: [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.14502 Harm perceptions of e-cigarettes and other nicotine products in a UK sample]===

**"Lead researcher Dr Leonie Brose, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, said 'Tobacco cigarettes kill over half of those who smoke long-term, yet very few people know that nicotine is not the direct cause of smoking-related death and disease. We found those people who think nicotine is to blame for harms from smoking are more likely to think e-cigarettes and NRT are just as bad as smoking.'"

**"Knowledge about nicotine was particularly poor, with nearly nine out of ten misattributing a greater portion of the risk in smoking to nicotine, and nearly four out of ten wrongly believing nicotine is what causes cancer from smoking."

===2015: [https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/nicotine--no-more-harmful-to-health-than-caffeine-.html Nicotine “no more harmful to health than caffeine”]===