NCT05468333

"Natural" and "Organic" Cigarette Descriptors: Association With Expectancies, Subjective Effects, Topography, and Biomarkers of Exposure Among Daily Smokers

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 184 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Nevada, Reno · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 21 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Smokers believe that cigarettes with the "natural" or "organic" descriptors are less harmful than cigarettes without these descriptors, but we do not know if these beliefs are associated with how smokers interpret the experience of smoking a "natural" or "organic" cigarette, nor whether these beliefs are predictive of changes in smoking behavior or biological exposures. The primary goal of this study is to examine the relationship between exposure to "natural" or "organic" descriptors in cigarette advertising and smoking health risk expectancies, subjective effects, topography, and biological exposures. To accomplish this goal, we will enroll 250 adult daily cigarette smokers of Natural American Spirit (NAS) or non-NAS brands (125 in each group) in a within-subjects human laboratory study manipulating four expectancy conditions (own brand comparator, "natural" advertising, "organic" advertising, "conventional" advertising).

Conditions

• Smoking Behaviors

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Cigarette trial	Participants were told that they were participating in market research for a new tobacco company called "Capital Tobacco." They were told that they were going to try three different cigarettes for the new company -- a conventional cigarette, a natural cigarette, and an organic cigarette -- and provide the research team with their impressions about the advertising and the smoking experience for each product. We also told them were were studying whether smoking these different types of cigarettes changed their exposure to chemicals in cigarette smoke. The intervention consisted of showing participants conventional, natural, and organic versions of a mailer and reading them a brief description of the brand. In reality, participants were smoking the same cigarette 3 times.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-01-20
• Primary completion: 2024-08-31
• Completion: 2024-08-31
• First posted: 2022-07-21
• Last updated: 2025-12-31

Locations

3 sites across 1 country: United States