Foundational Research
The rapidly changing tobacco landscape demands that our underage tobacco prevention strategies be informed by the latest available information. In early 2019, we recognized the need to deepen our understanding of underage use of e-vapor and other new products (including demographics, use patterns and risk and protective factors) to inform our prevention and cessation strategies and to increase the timeliness and quality of surveillance data.
In the first quarter of 2020, Altria piloted a new Underage Tobacco Use Survey designed to generate actionable information on a more frequent, timely basis than is currently provided through the government and Public Health national data sets. We began full execution of the Underage Tobacco Use Survey in the second quarter of 2020.
We assess several key measures of tobacco use among underage individuals, including awareness of tobacco products, current and ever tobacco use, demographic characteristics, use frequencies, brand and flavors used, sources of access, and stopping and intentions to stop tobacco use. The annual target sample size for the survey is 5,000 individuals ages 13 to 20.1 We share this data with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) twice a year and make the results public through our Altria Science website.
Our key stakeholders, including FDA personnel evaluating product and claim authorizations, the Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee, investors, public health groups and others, expect that we understand the latest product-specific underage tobacco use trends. This survey is designed to help us meet those expectations.
