Leader: Warren K. Bickel, PhD, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

During the current P01, we developed and demonstrated the initial utility of the ETM, which places the mix of products, prices, and specific regulations/policies under experimental control to simulate and inform real world outcomes. The goal of this renewal application is to further develop and refine the ETM to address potential outcomes resulting from the novel tobacco market developments. The objective of Project 3 is to examine in different types of users: 1) the substitutability between novel tobacco products and more frequently used tobacco products; 2) factors that promote and mitigate illegal tobacco purchases; and 3) the generality of these findings in diverse non-laboratory samples. The scientific premise for the proposed research is based on our 30 years of research on the behavioral economics of smoking, progress in the prior grant period, and our preliminary data.

There are three Specific Aims: 1) to compare the relative substitution between different nicotine/tobacco products as a function of tobacco-user type; 2) to model policies that may promote and mitigate illegal tobacco purchases for different types of tobacco users; and 3) to examine the generality of laboratory-based findings using diverse samples from ITC cohorts and moderators of these effects. As Exploratory Aims, Project 3 will examine results by age, sex, race/ethnicity, SES, dependence, and country; in addition, we will assess the predictive validity of ETM purchase behaviors collected in Aim 3 by comparing results from experiments conducted in the laboratory with experiments conducted within the web-based surveys in Projects 1 and 2.