Consumer Comprehension of Displays of Harmful and Potentially Harmful Constituents (HPHCs) in Tobacco Products

OMB Control #0910-0796

RIHSC #

HPHC Interviews

Interview Guide

I. Welcome

Hello. My name is ____ and I work with RTI International, a not for profit research company. Thank you for coming here today. I want to remind you that your participation is voluntary and you have the right to withdraw at any point. Your participation is very important. The purpose of this interview is to hear your views and opinions some informational materials under development about tobacco products. Your insights are very important to us and your time today is appreciated. We will have about 60 minutes for our interview.

Before we begin, there are few things I want to share as background for our interview.

• As you were told during the screening process, we are audio recording this interview today. I want to give you my full attention and not have to take a lot of notes. At the end of our interview, I have to write a report and will refer to the recording when writing the report. Your name will not be used in any report. Once we are finished with all of the interviews, we will destroy the audio recordings.

• Everything we discuss today will be kept private to the extent allowable by law [YOUTH: and will not be shared with your parent or guardian]. Your name and contact information, which only the study staff knows, will not be given to anyone else, and no one will contact you after this discussion is over.

• Behind me is a one-way mirror. Some of the people working on this project are observing this interview or watching through a video stream so that they can hear your opinions directly from you and take notes so that your opinions are accurately captured.

• If at any time you are uncomfortable with my questions, you can choose not to answer. Simply let me know that you prefer not to answer.

• I am not a medical doctor or an expert on tobacco, so I won’t be able to answer your questions. At the end of our interview, I have educational materials that you can take home with you if you wish.

• Please turn your cell phone to vibrate or silent mode.

• Most importantly, there are no right or wrong answers. I want to know your opinions. I do not work for a tobacco company or the people sponsoring this research and I didn’t write the questions we’re going to look at, so don’t hold back on giving me your honest opinions.

• Do you have any questions before we begin?

II. Participant Introduction

Before we begin our interview, tell me a little bit about yourself? What is one thing that you like to do in your free time?

3. Knowledge and Perceptions of Chemicals in Tobacco Products

We are going to talk about tobacco products. Keep in mind that when we talk about tobacco products, we are referring to cigarettes, chewing tobacco, snuff, dip, snus, and roll your own tobacco.

1. For susceptible: Have you ever used or tried any tobacco products? Which tobacco products have you used or tried?

2. For users: What tobacco products do you use currently? How long have you used it/them? How often?

3. For users: Have you tried any other tobacco products? Which ones?

4. What do you know about the ingredients in tobacco products?

   1. Probe: Do you think about what may be in your tobacco products?

   2. Probe: Do you think about what goes inside your body when you use your tobacco?

5. What have you heard or seen about chemicals and tobacco? What comes to mind when you hear about chemicals in tobacco products?

   1. Probe: What are the names of some chemicals in tobacco?

   2. Are there any differences between them?

   3. Probe: Are you concerned about chemicals in tobacco? Why/Why not?

   4. Probe: Do you think certain tobacco products have more chemicals than others? What makes you think that?

6. What do you think these chemicals do? Why are they in tobacco products?

   1. Probe: Do you think these chemicals affect your health? Why or why not?

   2. Probe: How much tobacco would you have to use before you see negative effects?

7. Have you ever thought about the number of chemicals that are in tobacco?

   1. Probe: How many do you think there are? How do you know this?

8. Where do you think the chemicals in tobacco products come from?

3. Display of HPHC Information

9. Have you ever looked for information about chemicals in tobacco?

If so, where?

1. Probe: What made you look for this information?

2. Probe: How did you know where to look?

3. Probe: What type of information did you find?

4. Probe: What did you do with this information?

5. Probe: Did you find it helpful? Why or why not?

6. Probe: Where else might you look for this information:

   1. Probe possible places:

      1. Tobacco manufacturer website

      2. Government website

      3. Non-Profit website

      4. Tobacco Retailer

      5. Doctor’s office or handout

      6. Internet – probe where?

      7. Tobacco package

      8. Store display

      9. Other

If not,

1. Probe: If you knew this information was available, would you be interested in looking at it? Why/Why not?

2. Probe: What would make you want to look for this information?

3. Probe: Where do you think this information would be found?

1. Probe possible places:

   1. Tobacco manufacturer website

   2. Government website

   3. Non-Profit website

   4. Tobacco Retailer

   5. Doctor’s office or handout

   6. Internet – probe where?

   7. Tobacco package

   8. Store display

   9. Other

4. Probe: What do you think you would do with the information?

5. Probe: What would you like to know about chemicals in tobacco?

10. If there was a place where you could find out what chemicals were in tobacco products, where would you like to find this information?

    1. Tobacco manufacturers website

    2. Government website (which one?)

    3. Non-Profit website

    4. Tobacco Retailer

    5. Store display

    6. Doctor (office? From doctor?)

    7. Family/Friend

    8. Internet (which sites?)

    9. Tobacco package

    10. Other places?

11. If we wanted to make sure that you saw this information, what are the best ways to get them to you?

12. Who would you trust this information from? Why?

Probe possible places:

1. Tobacco manufacturers

2. Government

3. Non-Profit

4. Tobacco Retailer

5. Doctor

6. Family/Friend

7. Celebrity

8. Internet – probe specific sites

9. Tobacco package

10. Other?

13. How would you use information about chemicals in tobacco?

    1. Probe: FOR USERS: Would it affect how you use tobacco products? How so?

    2. Probe: FOR NON USERS: Would it affect if you use tobacco products? How so?

14. What information would you like to be included?

    1. Probe: Would you like to see information about the health effects of chemicals? Why/why not?

15. What are some good ways to present or show this information?

    1. Numbers

    2. Ranges

    3. Words

    4. Combination of numbers and words

    5. Graphics or images

16. How should information be organized?

    1. color coded

    2. Grouped by health effect

    3. In a table or chart

    4. How many chemicals should be listed?

    5. How would you decide which ones should be listed?

    6. For some of the chemicals there might not be information available, such as the amount or value. How should missing information be shown? Should it still be reported?

17. Would you use this information? If so, how?

    1. FOR USERS: Would it affect how you use tobacco products? How so?

    2. FOR NON USERS/SUSCEPTIBLE: Would it affect you if you use tobacco products? How so?

3. Sample Formats [See appendix]

Next, I’d like to show you some examples of the way this information on chemicals could be shown. I’d like you to concentrate on the format – how the information is displayed - and not the information itself. We’ll take a look at several formats and I’d like to get your thoughts on each one – for now, try not to compare the different ones.

(Ask these questions for each format)

18. What do you think of this format?

19. In your own words, what does this tell you?

20. Just looking at the format, what do you like about this one?

21. What would you change? Please feel free to mark up the chart.

22. What is confusing or unclear?

23. What do these numbers mean?

    1. What does a higher number mean?

    2. What does a lower number mean?

24. What have you learned about the tobacco product?

25. Would you use this information? If so, how?

    1. FOR USERS: Would it affect how you use tobacco products? How so?

    2. FOR NON USERS: Would it affect you if you use tobacco products? How so?

For the chart with the FDA logo only

26. Did you notice the FDA logo on this format? What do you think about that?

Now that you have seen several different formats, I want to ask you some questions about this information.

27. What would be your “ideal” format for this information? What is the best way to show this information?

1. Can you describe and/or draw an example?

28. Where would be your “ideal” place for this information?

29. Where would you expect to find it? Which one? Why?

1. Probe possible places:

1. Tobacco manufacturer website

2. Government website

3. Non-Profit website

4. Tobacco Retailer

5. Doctor’s office or handout

6. Internet – probe where?

7. Tobacco package

8. Store display

9. Other

3. Closing

Those are all of the questions I have for you. I would like to thank you for coming here today and sharing your opinions. This research was sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration also known as the FDA. FDA would like to thank you for sharing your opinions as they will be very useful in helping them to understand people’s reactions and thoughts about the tobacco products we have talked about. Here is a pamphlet with information from FDA on how users can quit.

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