Research in Brief: Effects of Anti-Smoking Messages on Young Adult LGBTQ+ Women Who Smoke

In the U.S., young women aged 18-30 who identify as LGBTQ+ are up 4.8 times more likely to smoke cigarettes than their heterosexual peers. As a result, these women are at significantly higher risk of smoking-related illnesses, including cancer and heart disease.

In a new study published in Scientific Reports, researchers at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, including Professor Andy Tan, doctoral candidate Brittany Zulkiewicz, and Health Communication & Equity Lab research project manager Elaine Hanby, and colleagues tested whether anti-smoking messages tailored for the LGBTQ+ community were better at promoting quitting smoking than non-tailored anti-smoking messages.

The team discovered that LGBTQ+ community-tailored messages were more effective than non-tailored messages at promoting anti-tobacco-industry beliefs and attitudes for young adult LGBTQ+ women who smoke. Tailored messages increased their intentions to quit smoking.

The team, led by Zulkiewicz, first author of the paper, wrote a summary of their findings, originally posted on The PRIDE Study Research website. 

What Did We Do?

We wanted to test if anti-smoking messages tailored for the LGBTQIA+ community were better at promoting quitting smoking than non-tailored messages. We tested this with LGBTQ+ women in the US aged 18-30 who currently smoke cigarettes. A total of 966 participants were recruited from existing groups for online studies (including The PRIDE Study), social media, and a dating app.

We created tailored and non-tailored anti-smoking messages. Tailored messages included an LGBTQIA+-focused logo and slogan, while non-tailored messages did not. Both sets of messages used the same photos and text that encouraged quitting or avoiding smoking. We randomly assigned participants to see either tailored or non-tailored messages over one month.

We thought that young adult LGBTQ+ women who smoke who received tailored messages would be more likely to believe that the tobacco industry is bad or unethical and would have a negative attitude towards the tobacco industry. They would then want to quit smoking because they did not want to support the tobacco industry.

What Was New, Innovative, or Notable?

This was one of the first studies to test whether tailored anti-smoking messages are more effective than non-tailored messages at increasing intentions to quit smoking for young adult LGBTQ+ women who smoke by promoting anti-industry beliefs and attitudes.

What Did We Learn?

We learned that tailored messages were more effective than non-tailored messages at promoting anti-industry beliefs and attitudes for young adult LGBTQ+ women who smoke. Tailored messages increased their intentions to quit smoking.

What Does This Mean for LGBTQ+ Communities?

These findings help us understand more about how tailored images and text included in anti-smoking messages impact the effectiveness of health messaging related to smoking for young adult LGBTQ+ women who smoke. Health communicators can use this information to help develop future messages.

What’s Next?

Future research will look at whether how connected someone feels to the LGBTQIA+ community affects their experience with tailored messages. We want to understand more about how anti-industry beliefs and attitudes are understood by young adult LGBTQ+ women. 

“Anti-Industry Beliefs and Attitude Mediate the Effect of Culturally Tailored Anti-Smoking Messages on Quit Intentions Among Young Adult Sexual Minority Women who Smoke” was authored by Brittany Zulkiewicz (Annenberg), Jarvis T. Chen, Elaine P. Hanby (Annenberg), Shoba Ramanadhan, Juno Obedin-Maliver, Mitchell R. Lunn, N. F. N. Scout, Bob Gordon, Julia Applegate, Ana Machado, Kasisomayajula Viswanath, Jennifer Potter, Sixiao Liu, and Andy Tan (Annenberg) and published in Scientific Reports.