Objective: The main objective was to examine characteristics associated with cigarette access behaviours among underage current youth smokers. Methods: This cross-sectional study used self-reported data collected from 29,296 students in Grades 9 to 12 who participated in the 2008-09 Youth Smoking Survey (YSS), and data from the 2008-09 DMTI-EPOI (Enhanced Points of Interest) data file. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were used to jointly examine whether student characteristics and the number of tobacco retailers surrounding schools were associated with the odds of a current youth smoker accessing cigarettes from: (a) a retailer source, (b) a family member, and (c) a friend or someone else. Results: Among underage current smokers, the majority reported usually buying their own cigarettes from a retailer (44.1%), and getting cigarettes from a friend or someone else (42.2%). Significant between-school random variation was identified for youth cigarette access from a retailer source, and from a friend or stranger. Males were more likely to buy their own cigarettes from a retailer (OR 2.08, 95% CI 1.74-2.48), whereas females were more likely to access cigarettes from a family member (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.53-0.88), or a friend or someone else (OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.44-0.61). Binge smoking was associated with buying cigarettes from a retailer (OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.48-0.86). Youth with a smoking parent or guardian (OR 2.95, 95% CI 2.02-4.31) were more likely to get cigarettes from a family member. Youth who reported that they sometimes (OR 2.80, 95% CI 1.94-4.04), or usually or always (OR 3.15, 95% CI 2.17-4.58) share cigarettes with others was associated with accessing cigarettes from a friend or someone else. Each additional tobacco retailer surrounding a school was associated with an increased likelihood of youth purchasing their own cigarettes from a retailer (OR 1.04, 95% CI 1.01-1.07). Conclusion: Tobacco point-of-sale restrictions are inadequate as youth can still procure cigarettes from both retailers and social sources. Future studies should explore beyond individual-level factors and examine what influences cigarette access behaviours in the broader school context. Such insight will inform the development of new school-level tobacco control initiatives that can more effectively prevent youth from acquiring cigarettes.

<p><italic>The Persistence of Smoke</italic> is a documentary opera. The libretto is based on interviews with various individuals related to the former Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company headquarters in Durham, North Carolina.</p><p>The cigarette industry once dominated Durham, but saw its decline in the 1990s as the link between cancer and smoking became increasingly clear. The American Tobacco Company and the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company were once the biggest cigarette manufacturers in the city. As these companies left Durham, their factories and tobacco warehouses first sat vacant, but were gradually preserved and transformed into new spaces for offices, apartments and restaurants.</p><p>This project focused on the former Liggett and Myers headquarters along Main Street, a collection of buildings now known as "West Village". I interviewed current and former Durham residents who had a connection with these buildings, including local business representatives, community leaders, former Liggett employees, historians, current residents in the downtown area, municipal urban planners, journalists, and an architect. These interviews were given to local playwright John Justice, who created a libretto based on the themes that emerged.</p><p>The opera's story focuses on Kevin, an architect about to unveil his visionary master plan for redeveloping several defunct cigarette factories in an unnamed city. As Kevin leaves his newly renovated apartment for the press conference, he is confronted by his estranged father Curtis, a former cigarette worker who desperately wants to reconcile and reconnect, deliriously recalling the glory days of tobacco and the money that followed.</p> / Dissertation

Abstract Rates of smoking are elevated in eating-disordered populations, especially among females (Pomerleau & Snedecor, 2008; Klesges & Klesges, 1988). Restrained eaters ignore physiological cues of satiation and hunger, and instead attempt to employ cognitive control over decisions to eat. Additionally, they are prone to eat in a disinhibited manner after a salient emotional or food cue interrupts their restraint. This eating style is also associated with increased rates of smoking compared with the general population. Although there is a great deal of literature on the relationship between smoking and eating, the role of eating in momentary decisions regarding smoking remains to be explored. The current study tested whether a food prime, which has been found to elicit disinhibited eating in restrained eaters, could also motivate smoking as an alternative to eating. In a randomized two-arm (Prime/No-Prime) between-subjects design, it was hypothesized that smokers, particularly those high in eating restraint, receiving a food prime would be more likely to smoke than eat when given the option, compared to smokers who did not receive the food prime. Although main effects on smoking variables were not found, restraint status did moderate the effect of the food prime upon latency to first puff, number of puffs, and cigarette craving. Moreover, the moderation effect was reversed upon eating variables, suggesting that after a food prime, weight-control smokers appear to choose to smoke to prevent further food intake. This conclusion was bolstered by the finding that the moderation effect on smoking was further moderated by expectancies regarding the effect of smoking upon appetite and weight. In summary, this study identified psychological mechanisms that appear to underlie the population-based covariance between disordered eating and smoking.

Background: Cross-sectional and experimental research has shown that female smokers more frequently report using cigarettes to control negative affect, manage dietary restraint, and suppress body image dissatisfaction. However, there has been little research to identify cognitive mechanisms that may underlie these effects. Cross-stimulus attentional bias is one such mechanism. Aims and Hypotheses: We hypothesized that, when compared to neutral stimuli, in-vivo appetitive stimuli would enhance motivation to obtain a particular substance. More specifically, in-vivo smoking stimuli would increase attentional bias to smoking-related pictorial cues, whereas in-vivo food stimuli would increase attention to smoking-related and food-related pictorial cues. We also hypothesized that environmental tobacco smoke exposure history, negative affect, dietary restraint, body image dissatisfaction, and perceived appetite suppression of smoking would influence these attentional biases, such that higher levels of these characteristics would produce greater attentional biases. Method: Thirty-five female smokers were exposed to visual stimuli containing two independent pictorial cues: smoking/neutral, smoking/food, neutral/food, or neutral/neutral. Twenty images were presented in 3 counter-balanced, within-subjects sets differentiated by smoking (cigarette pack), food (snack) and neutral (jewelry) in-vivo stimuli. Attentional bias was measured using eye-tracking technology. Dietary restraint, body image dissatisfaction, negative affect, and environmental tobacco smoke exposure were assessed with self-report measures before the manipulations. Results: Effects counter to the hypotheses were observed, as in-vivo cigarettes and snack foods did not cause participants to differentially attend to pictorial smoking or food stimuli. Initial and maintained attention to smoking pictorial cues was greater than attention to food and neutral cues only when participants were administered a non-appetitive in-vivo stimulus. None of the theoretically hypothesized personality characteristics served as predictors or moderators of attentional bias. Discussion: Findings with the neutral in-vivo stimulus replicate and extend previous research identifying attentional bias for smoking cues among smokers. Results also enhance understanding of how attentional bias may change when smokers encounter other types of appetitive stimuli. These findings encourage further theoretical and clinical exploration of how the relationship between motivation and attentional bias can be conceptualized and translated from the laboratory to the natural environment.

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Consistent with classical conditioning theories of drug use, previous research has demonstrated that presenting smokers with either exteroceptive (e.g., pictures of cigarettes) or interoceptive (e.g., negative affect) cues results in increased motivation to smoke, as measured by urge and smoking topography (e.g., shorter latency to begin smoking). However, few studies have presented both types of cues to determine whether and how they might interact in the production of smoking motivation, and little research has focused on identifying potential moderators of cue reactivity. In a randomized 2 x 2 crossed factorial between-subjects design, the current study tested whether an interoceptive cue (anxiety induced via a speech preparation task) and an exteroceptive cue (exposure to a lit cigarette) interacted in the production of urge and behavioral reactivity and whether the personality trait of impulsivity moderated these effects. Results indicated main effects but no interactive effects for the two cue types on self-reported urge, no main or interactive effects on smoking topography, and no moderating effects of impulsivity. However, impulsivity was significantly correlated with urge to smoke, self-reported negative affect, and expectancies that smoking relieves negative affect, suggesting that this trait plays an important role in continued tobacco use. Implications for future research on the relationship between impulsivity and smoking behavior are discussed.

published_or_final_version / Criminology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

In 1999, the Federal Government sued the tobacco companies in an attempt to recover expenses used to treat diseases caused by smoking. The 2006 verdict required the dissemination of corrective statements intended to inform the public of the dangers of smoking. This study analyzes smokers' perceptions of these statements. Statements were tested from November 5 to December 5, 2007. Results indicate: (1) messages created by public health intervenors and tobacco companies tended to have higher mean scores than those created by the DOJ, (2) statements on nicotine being addictive had significantly higher mean scores than the other two sets tested, (3) that all statements were rated higher in terms of believability than in terms of other factors, and (4) light smokers rated statements higher in terms of motivating and likelihood to quit than did medium or heavy smokers. These results will be used to refine the development of corrective statements.

The three research studies included in this dissertation aimed to examine the reasons for e-cigarette use among U.S. adults, and to examine the U.S. public opinion on allowing e-cigarette use where smoking is otherwise prohibited. Mixed (quantitative and qualitative) research methods were used. Data from an online survey (2012) and focus groups (2014) were analyzed. Among 307 survey respondents who had ever used e-cigarettes, the three most common reasons for e-cigarette use were curiosity (40.8%), the belief that “it helps people quit smoking” (19.1%), and perceiving e-cigarettes “less harmful than regular cigarettes” (9.3%). About 40% of U.S. adults were uncertain whether e-cigarette use should be allowed in smoke-free public areas, 37% opposed, while 23% favored allowing their use in smoke-free environments. The majority of the focus group participants have used e-cigarettes to complement regular cigarette smoking and intake nicotine where smoking is restricted. E-cigarette use was viewed to be less harmful and more convenient than smoking regular cigarettes. The findings of the three studies suggest that curiosity about e-cigarettes lead to experimentation and the convenience to use e-cigarettes in smoke-free areas lead to continual use. With impending regulation and the changing e-cigarette landscape, there is a need for continued monitoring and research on reasons for and attitudes about e-cigarette use, and on public opinion pertaining to e-cigarette use in smoke-free areas.

Since the Surgeon General linked smoking to lung cancer in 1965, controversy has surrounded the tobacco industry and its advertising methods. Research over the past thirty five years has focused on the effect of cigarette advertising on sales, the impact of tobacco advertisements on youth, and the content of the ads.A content analysis conducted by David Altman in 1987 analyzed model activity in cigarette advertisements in magazines from 1960-1985. Altman concluded that tobacco advertisers were targeting youth and women's markets differently through the frequent use of health and vitality themes in the advertisements. The present study is a replication of the 1987 content analysis. The same eight magazines were selected for the years 1986-2000: Cycle World, Ebony, Ladies Home Journal, Mademoiselle, Popular Science, Rolling Stone, Time, and TV Guide. Three coders studied 365 tobacco advertisements and evaluated the act of smoking, the presence of low tar and nicotine claims, and the vitality of smoking themes.The findings indicated an increase in the use of health and vitality themes in cigarette advertisements, just as in the original study. Low tar and nicotine claims, however, decreased in the advertisements in the present study despite having increased in the 1987 data. Also consistent with the original study was the higher frequency of health and vitality themes used in advertisements geared toward youth and women than in those targeting general audiences. The portrayal of the act of smoking decreased in both studies.The researcher concludes that tobacco advertisers continue to target youth and women with health and vitality themes, and therefore violate the industry's advertising code. / Department of Journalism