Background

While tobacco and alcohol co-use is highly prevalent across the United States, little experimental research has examined ways to counter such dual use. We developed and tested messages about the risks of co-using tobacco and alcohol among adults who used a combustible tobacco product and drank alcohol within the 30 days.

Methods

In an online experiment, 1,300 participants were randomly assigned to read different messages about tobacco and alcohol co-use (e.g., Alcohol and tobacco cause throat cancer). Three between-subjects experiments manipulated the presence of: 1) a marker word (e.g., Warning), 2) text describing the symptoms of health effects and a quitting self-efficacy cue, and 3) an image depicting the health effect. Participants rated each message using a validated Perceived Message Effectiveness (PME) scale. We used independent samples t-tests to examine differences between experimental conditions. Results include effect sizes (Cohen’s d) to compare standardized mean differences.

Results

Our sample was 64% male, 70% white, 23% Black, and 17% Hispanic/Latino with a mean age of 42.4 (SD = 16.4) years. Messages that described the symptoms of the health effect (d = 0.17, p = 0.002) and included an image (d = 0.11, p = 0.04) were rated significantly higher in PME compared with messages that did not describe symptoms and were text-only. We found no significant effects of a marker word or self-efficacy cue on PME.

Conclusions

Messages that describe the symptoms of health effects and include text and images may be particularly effective for communicating the risks of tobacco and alcohol co-use and decreasing adverse health effects from co-use.

中文翻译：

---

沟通烟草和酒精共同使用的风险

 背景

虽然烟草和酒精的同时使用在美国非常普遍，但很少有实验研究探讨如何应对这种双重使用。我们针对在 30 天内使用可燃烟草产品并饮酒的成年人制定并测试了有关同时使用烟草和酒精的风险的信息。

 方法

在一项在线实验中，1,300 名参与者被随机分配阅读有关烟草和酒精共同使用的不同信息（例如，酒精和烟草会导致喉癌）。三个受试者间实验操纵了以下内容的存在：1）标记词（例如警告），2）描述健康影响症状和戒烟自我效能提示的文本，以及3）描绘健康影响的图像。参与者使用经过验证的感知消息有效性 (PME) 量表对每条消息进行评分。我们使用独立样本t检验来检查实验条件之间的差异。结果包括效应大小（Cohen's d ）以比较标准化平均差异。

 结果

我们的样本中 64% 是男性，70% 是白人，23% 是黑人，17% 是西班牙裔/拉丁裔，平均年龄为 42.4 (SD = 16.4) 岁。与未描述症状且纯文本的消息相比，描述健康影响症状（ d = 0.17， p = 0.002）并包含图像（ d = 0.11， p = 0.04）的消息在 PME 中的评分显着更高。我们发现标记词或自我效能提示对 PME 没有显着影响。

 结论

描述健康影响症状并包括文本和图像的消息对于传达烟草和酒精共同使用的风险以及减少共同使用对健康的不利影响可能特别有效。