Smokers' support for the ban on sale of slim cigarettes
 
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1
Department of Health Care, Faculty of Health, University of Vlora, Vlora, Albania
 
2
European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention, Brussels, Belgium
 
3
School of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece
 
4
Maria Skłodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology, Warsaw, Poland
 
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Health Promotion Foundation, Nadarzyn, Poland
 
6
Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, Poland
 
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Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
 
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School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
 
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Department of Primary Care and Public Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
 
10
Cancer Prevention Unit and WHO Collaborating Centre for Tobacco Control, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
 
11
Heart Center, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
 
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Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
 
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Tobacco Control Unit, Catalan Institute of Oncology, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia, Spain
 
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Tobacco Control Research Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia, Spain
 
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School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universitat de Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia, Spain
 
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Consortium for Biomedical Research in Respiratory Diseases, CIBER of Respiratory Diseases - CIBERES, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
 
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University of Medicine and Pharmacy ‘Grigore T. Popa' Iasi, Iași, Romania
 
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AerPur Romania, Bucharest, Romania
 
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Smoking or Health Hungarian Foundation, Budapest, Hungary
 
20
First ICU Evaggelismos Hospital of Athens, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
 
21
European Observatory of Health Inequalities, President Stanisław Wojciechowski State University of Applied Sciences, Kalisz, Poland
 
22
School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
 
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Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, Canada
 
 
Publication date: 2021-12-10
 
 
Tob. Prev. Cessation 2021;7(Supplement):46
 
ABSTRACT
Introduction:
Tobacco use kills around 700,000 people annually in European Union (EU). Within these countries a big number of smokers consumes cigarettes with specific characteristics (i.e. slim or flavoured cigarettes). Inclusion of the slim cigarettes ban during the last revision of the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was broadly discussed but, unfortunately, was not finally included in the law. This study is aimed to examine the smokers' support in six EU countries for the ban on sale of slim cigarettes.

Methods:
The research analysis includes cross-sectional data on attitudes of adult smokers (n=5592) from second wave of the EUREST-PLUS ITC Europe Surveys (ITC 6E). The survey wave was conducted in 2018 in Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Spain. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis (with the use of SAS-callable SUDAAN Version 11.0.3) have been made for estimating the smokers' support for the slims ban by sociodemographic characteristics, smoking behaviours and beliefs on slim cigarettes harm and for examining specific factors associated with the support.

Results:
Support for slims ban substantially varied across analyzed countries, being the lowest in Greece (18.0%; 95%CI=13.7-23.3) and the highest in Romania (33.8%; 95%CI=29.2-38.8). Female smokers and all smokers with moderate income, daily and menthol smokers, those not planning to quit smoking as well as smokers believing that slims are less harmful than regular cigarettes were less likely to support the slims ban.

Conclusions:
This study reports that support for the ban on sale of slim cigarettes s is at low level in analyzed countries. It can result both from characteristics of smoking behaviours, including cessation plans, and from misperceptions of smokers on the harmfulness of slim cigarettes. There is an urgent need for additional research on the slim cigarettes harm and for population-based and target-tailored public awareness campaigns addressed to slim cigarette smokers.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
No Conflicts of Interest were reported.
 
CITATIONS (1):
1.
Electronic device or regulated tobacco product? Learning from the diffusion of heated tobacco products in Spain
J.M. Martín-Álvarez, A. Almeida, A.A. Golpe, E. Asensio
Public Health
 
eISSN:2459-3087
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