Associations of educational and marketing messages with beliefs about nicotine and reduced nicotine cigarettes

Widespread misperceptions about nicotine may have unintended effects on public health. We examined associations between existing messages about nicotine or tobacco and beliefs about nicotine and reduced nicotine cigarettes (RNC). 2962 U.S. 18–45-year-olds were randomized in a May 2022 web-based survey to view one of 26 text-based messages about tobacco or nicotine from three sources: ongoing research (n = 8), messages authorized by FDA for VLN cigarettes (n = 6), and FDA's “From Plant to Product to Puff” campaign (n = 12); six messages from FDA's campaign did not reference nicotine and were treated as the reference source. Analyses examined associations between messages, grouped by source and individually, with beliefs about nicotine and RNC addictiveness and harms. Relative to FDA messages that did not reference nicotine, all message sources were associated with greater odds of a correct belief about nicotine (Odds Ratios [ORs] = 1.40–1.87, p's