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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Adolesc. Med.
Sec. Addiction in Adolescents
Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fradm.2025.1556505
This article is part of the Research TopicGlobal youth e-cigarette use: prevalence, risks, and regulatory policy impactsView all 6 articles
Understanding Racial/Ethnic Differences in E-Cigarette Outcome Expectancies Among Early Adolescents: Findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study
Provisionally accepted- 1Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, United States
- 2Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States
- 3Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, College of Arts & Sciences, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States
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Introduction: E-cigarette expectancies, which might differ by race/ethnicity, play a crucial role in shaping youth e-cigarette use. Observed differences by race/ethnicity, however, may reflect racial/ethnic variations in social determinants of health, such as socioeconomic status (SES). This study examined the extent to which race/ethnicity was uniquely associated with youth positive and negative e-cigarette expectancies, after adjusting for SES and neighborhood disadvantage; and individual, family, and peer risk factors.Methods: Analyses included 8,814 Black (15.0%), Latinx (22.8%) and White (62.2%) 12–to-14-year-old participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. Applying a three-stage analytic approach, hierarchical regression analyses examined associations of positive and negative e-cigarette expectancies with race/ethnicity in three blocks; with age and gender in block 1, adding SES and neighborhood disadvantage in block 2; and individual, family, and peer risk factors in block 3.Results: Black and Latinx (relative to White) race/ethnicity and Latinx (relative to Black) race/ethnicity were associated with positive expectancies (p < 0.001) in blocks 1 and 2 but were non-significant in block 3. Black and Latinx (relative to White) race/ethnicity and Latinx (relative to Black) race/ethnicity were associated with lower negative expectancies (p < 0.001) in block 1, but were no longer significant after adding SES and neighborhood indicators in block 2. Perceived risk, perceived peer disapproval and curiosity about e-cigarettes were associated with positive and negative expectancies.Discussion: Results highlight the importance of considering associations of race/ethnicity with e-cigarette expectancies in the context of social determinant and individual and interpersonal factors in e-cigarette prevention.
Keywords: e-Cigarette, Adolescent, Positive expectancies, Negative expectancies, race, ethnicity E-cigarette, ethnicity
Received: 07 Jan 2025; Accepted: 15 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tarantino, Chung, Kennelly, Latendresse, Powell and Sartor. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: John Tarantino, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, United States
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