Most tobacco warnings focus on health harms to the consumer, but other message themes may be promising. We assessed perceived message effectiveness (PME) among adults who smoke cigars for 12 cigar warning statements to discourage smoking, and measured PME across four message themes: explicit health effects to the consumer, secondhand smoke effects, chemicals/constituents, and toxicity. Between April 23 and May 7, 2020, we conducted an online study with U.S. adults who used any cigar type in the past 30 days (n = 777). Participants were randomly assigned to view two out of 12 warnings and rate each one on PME. We analyzed PME mean ratings (range 1 [low] to 5 [high]). The warning statements for lung cancer (M = 3.91) and heart disease (M = 3.77) had the highest PME ratings; secondhand smoke (M = 3.50) and formaldehyde (M = 3.48) had the lowest PME ratings. Multilevel analyses showed that the explicit health effects theme was associated with higher PME ratings compared to other warning themes (ps
Full Text via ClinicalKey 
Full Text Finder