In the U.S., young women who identify as LGBTQ+ are up 4.8 times more likely to smoke cigarettes than their heterosexual peers.
“This places them at significantly higher risks of smoking-related illnesses including cancers and heart disease,” says Andy Tan, director of Health Communication & Equity Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication.
As part of Project Resist, a study to test health messaging approaches to increase resistance to tobacco marketing among young adult sexual minority women, Tan and colleagues recently published a new paper on LGBTQ+ young women and smoking in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The research finds that tailored messages were more effective than non-tailored messages in reducing positive beliefs about the tobacco industry among those who smoke.
Researchers created tailored and non-tailored anti-smoking messages. Tailored messages included an LGBTQ+ logo and slogan, while non-tailored messages did not. Both sets of messages used the same photos and same text that encouraged quitting or avoiding smoking. They randomly assigned participants to see either tailored or non-tailored messages over one month. Study participants were ages 18-30, identified as LGBTQ+, and identified as women. This included 1,212 participants who currently smoke and 1,002 who did not smoke.
This study is one of the first about helping to quit smoking that focused specifically on young adult LGBTQ+ women, as there is a gap in knowledge of effective strategies for this group. Additionally, this study is more inclusive by recruiting both cisgender and transgender women participants.
Read more at the Annenberg School for Communication.
