Awareness of a National Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Campaign and E-Cigarette Quitting Stages: Findings From Truth Initiative’s Mass Media Campaign (September 2024 to May 2025)

PurposeTo examine associations between awareness of a national tobacco prevention and cessation campaign and stages of readiness for quitting e-cigarettes.Design, Setting, and SampleData were obtained from a repeated, cross-sectional online survey of United States youth and young adults (aged 15-24 years), who reported past 30-day e-cigarette use, and provided survey responses between September 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025 (N = 3486).Measures and AnalysisMultinomial regression models were used to determine associations between awareness level (no awareness, low awareness, high awareness) of Truth Initiative's mass media campaign and stages of quitting e-cigarettes (precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation/action, based on expressed quit intentions), adjusted for the effects of age, sex assigned at birth, ethnicity and race, parental educational attainment, sexual orientation, current use of other tobacco products, and time of survey aligning with ad campaign.ResultsCompared to those with no campaign awareness, those with low and high campaign awareness were more likely to be in contemplation (relative risk ratio, RRR = 1.78 and RRR = 2.64) and preparation/action (RRR = 1.63 and RRR = 2.77) stages, respectively. Older age, female sex, Non-Hispanic Black ethnicity and race, and later time interval of survey aligning with ad campaign were associated with further quit stage, while bisexual identity was associated with earlier quit stage.ConclusionHigher levels of campaign awareness were associated with more advanced stages of quitting. Results suggest that campaign awareness may be particularly salient among youth and young adults who are considering or actively preparing to quit e-cigarettes.