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Responses of Adults Smoking Nondaily and Daily in the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace

Responses of Adults Smoking Nondaily and Daily in the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace

Status
Completed
Phases
Unknown
Study type
Interventional
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT06988371
Enrollment
747
Registered
2025-05-23
Start date
2025-08-18
Completion date
2026-08-24
Last updated
2026-09-01

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Cigarette Use, Tobacco Use

Keywords

tobacco, cigarettes, nondaily smoking, behavioral economics

Brief summary

The goal of this project is to learn about the potential impact of tobacco regulations that could affect the availability of tobacco products among adults who smoke nondaily and daily. Nondaily smoking is increasingly common and tobacco regulation research should consider how FDA actions may impact this group. Participants will be asked to complete online surveys and tests, online shopping sessions in a simulated Experimental Tobacco Marketplace. Reactions and decisions of adults who smoke nondaily and daily will be compared.

Detailed description

After granting informed consent, participants will complete the single assessment. First, investigators will collect information from participants on personal characteristics, substance use patterns and addiction severity, and behavioral and cognitive tasks that measure components of our behavioral economic model of product valuation. Experimental Tobacco Marketplace. In this procedure, participants will complete purchasing scenarios in a realistic tobacco/nicotine product marketplace to model and examine the impact of each of the proposed tobacco product regulations. Participants will be seated in front of a computer to access a simulated online tobacco marketplace with an interface similar to many online merchants. This will allow participants to browse through the selection of tobacco products and add as many as they desire of each product to the virtual shopping cart. Each product will have the price clearly displayed along with an image and description of the product. The selection of products will vary based on the particular regulatory scenario that is being modeled. In each pricing scenario during each marketplace session, participants will be asked to make nicotine-product purchases sufficient for one week's use from this marketplace. During a purchasing session, the participant will be provided with a virtual budget that matches their actual weekly budget for nicotine/tobacco products, a procedure our team has shown to generate realistic results. Participants will use that virtual budget to indicate which selection of products they would purchase from those available in the marketplace.

Interventions

In this regulatory environment, participants' usual combustible cigarette will not be available in the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace and reduced nicotine content cigarettes will be the only available combustible cigarette.

In this regulatory environment, menthol and other characterizing flavors in combustible nicotine products will not be available in the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace. Tobacco- or no-flavored combustible nicotine products will be the only combustible nicotine products available.

In this regulatory environment, menthol and other characterizing flavors in noncombustible nicotine products will not be available in the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace. Tobacco- or no-flavored noncombustible nicotine products will be the only noncombustible nicotine products available.

Sponsors

Bethany Shorey Fennell, PhD
Lead SponsorOTHER
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
CollaboratorNIH

Study design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE

Intervention model description

Mixed crossover-factorial

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes

Inclusion criteria

* At least 18 years old * Consume cigarettes 4-30 days per month * Have no plans to quit nicotine/tobacco products * Read and understand English

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Aggregate behavioral economic demand across all participants under the proposed regulatory environmentsBaselineParticipants will complete trials of the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace wherein the price of a target commodity will be increased. Nonlinear mixed effects modeling will be used to fit a curve to estimate the number of products purchased at each price and the analysis will result in an measure of overall price sensitivity under each of the regulatory conditions.
Aggregate behavioral economic substitution across all participants under the proposed regulatory environmentsBaselineParticipants will complete trials of the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace wherein the price of alternative products will be fixed across trials and their usual product will change price. Mixed effects modeling will be used to fit a curve to estimate the slopes and intercepts of these alternative products, revealing the degree to which participants will choose to purchase each alternative product as the price of the participant's usual product increases.

Secondary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Hypothetical quantity purchased in purchase tasksBaselineMeasures valuation by assessing hypothetical consumption across a price range and across the range of products used by participants in the past 60 days.
Delay Discounting TasksBaselineAssesses valuation for future money and nicotine products.

Countries

United States

Contacts

PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORBethany Shorey Fennell, PhD

University of Kentucky

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Sep 2, 2026