Decoding Vaping: Empowering Youth Through Media Literacy Based E-cigarette Educational Program

Introduction:
This text provides an analysis of a study examining the impact of a media literacy-based e-cigarette educational program, MediaSense, on middle and high school students. The study aims to evaluate changes in vaping media literacy, knowledge, harm perception, and susceptibility to e-cigarette use before and after the intervention.

Key Points:

* The study employed a prospective, interventional, and single-arm design to assess the effectiveness of the MediaSense program.
* The program was implemented in five middle and high schools located in the Midwest region of the United States.
* Data were collected through REDCap surveys administered before and after the intervention.
* The study found that students exhibited significantly improved vaping media literacy across all three domains after the intervention.
* The intervention was also associated with a reduction in vaping susceptibility and improvement in harm perception.
* Knowledge of flavored e-cigarettes and Tobacco 21 policy also improved after the intervention.
* Mediation analysis revealed that the intervention reduced vaping susceptibility through media literacy and harm perception enhancement.

Main Message:
The MediaSense program showed promise in vaping prevention among adolescents by reducing vaping susceptibility. Comprehensive vaping media literacy education, especially interventions aimed at decoding misleading marketing information and addressing emerging marketing themes, provides valuable evidence in curbing adolescent vaping. Therefore, incorporating media literacy into vaping prevention and control programs holds great potential in equipping adolescents with essential skills to comprehend, analyze, and counter media messages, ultimately reducing vaping behavior among teenagers.

Tzeyu L Michaud, Niran Tamrakar, Kaeli Samson, Hongying Daisy Dai, Decoding Vaping: Empowering Youth Through Media Literacy Based E-cigarette Educational Program, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, Volume 27, Issue 3, March 2025, Pages 475–483, https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntae205