2004 — 2006 |
Blank, Melissa D |
F31Activity Code Description: To provide predoctoral individuals with supervised research training in specified health and health-related areas leading toward the research degree (e.g., Ph.D.). |
Does Puff Topography Measurement Alter Smoking Behavior? @ Virginia Commonwealth University
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Puff topography measurement plays an important role in elucidating the factors that maintain regular tobacco use. Generally, topography is assessed in laboratory settings via mouthpiece-based, desktop devices. Recently, a portable mouthpiece-based device became available for use in naturalistic settings. However, smoking behavior in any setting may be influenced by measurement equipment (i.e., the mouthpiece). Understanding the extent to which mouthpiece-based measurement equipment alters behavior is critical, and will require comparison of laboratory-based and portable devices with nonmouthpiece-based measurement. This proposal describes two studies. The first compares mouthpiece-based desktop and portable topography measurement with video recordings of participants' smoking in a laboratory. The second compares the more naturalistic mouthpiece-based device from study 1 with video recordings in a non-laboratory environment. Both studies use 30 smokers and within-subject designs to investigate whether a mouthpiece influences a variety of puff topography variables, including puff number, duration, and interpuff interval. Results from this project will help maximize the validity of future studies that rely on puff topography assessment. Conducting this research will provide valuable experience related to the responsible conduct of research with human participants, as well as issues related to data collection, analysis, and reporting across diverse research sites. These experiences will help me achieve my goal to become an independent drug abuse researcher.
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0.982 |
2014 — 2015 |
Blank, Melissa D |
R03Activity Code Description: To provide research support specifically limited in time and amount for studies in categorical program areas. Small grants provide flexibility for initiating studies which are generally for preliminary short-term projects and are non-renewable. |
Dual Cigarette and Smokeless Tobacco Use: Behavior Patterns and Toxicant Exposure @ West Virginia University
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cigarette smokers are increasingly engaging in use of alternative tobacco products: cigars, waterpipe tobacco, and smokeless tobacco (SLT). This emerging trend in tobacco consumption may reflect smokers' beliefs that these products are less lethal than cigarettes. In particular, novel SLT products (e.g., snus) may be used by smokers for purposes of reducing smoking-related harms and/or ceasing cigarettes altogether. Smokers able to successfully replace their cigarettes with these products may incur such health-related benefits. Public health officials are concerned, however, that smokers may instead supplement their cigarette use, especially given industry marketing practices coupled with indoor smoking restrictions. For instance, novel SLT products have been promoted by the industry for smokers to use in situations where cigarettes are prohibited. Similarly, some smokers report use of traditional SLT products (e.g., moist snuff) for this same reason. To better understand how smokers' health risks are affected as a result of concomitant SLT use, their natural patterns of use need to be characterized. In the proposed study, dual cigarette-SLT users will use an electronic diary for 14 consecutive days in their own environment. They will record each cigarette and SLT use episode as it occurs, as well as related contextual details (e.g., location/activity of use) and ratings of mood and craving. At the end of each day, participants will provide a saliva sample for later analysis of cotinine (metabolite of nicotine). The goals of this study are to determine whether a) cigarette smoking and salivary cotinine levels differ between dual versus single use days, and b) SLT use is promoted among smokers by temporal and contextual (e.g., indoor versus outdoor locations) factors. Study results will shed light on whether cigarette smokers' use of SLT is consistent with product supplementation or replacement, and thus whether this behavior influences their exposure to tobacco toxicants.
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1 |
2020 — 2021 |
Blank, Melissa D Metzger, Aaron P (co-PI) [⬀] |
R21Activity Code Description: To encourage the development of new research activities in categorical program areas. (Support generally is restricted in level of support and in time.) |
Predicting Longitudinal Patterns of Change in Adolescent Polytobacco Use: a Socio-Ecological Framework @ West Virginia University
Project Summary As the large majority of tobacco users initiate in adolescence or young adulthood, it is important to characterize patterns of use across this period of development. For both age groups, a rise in the use of alternative tobacco products (e.g., electronic cigarettes, hookah/waterpipes), as well as the use of two or more tobacco products concurrently (e.g., polytobacco use) has been noted. Yet little work has examined how these patterns of single or polytobacco use change from early adolescence into emerging adulthood, and even less work has examined comprehensively the multitude of factors that might predict this change. The proposed project seeks to fill these gaps by using a combination of variable- and person-centered analytic techniques to examine longitudinal patterns of change and associated antecedents from a socio-ecological framework. Using a nationally-representative dataset, the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH), this project will a) examine trajectories and related predictors of single tobacco product use from early adolescence (age 12) to emerging adulthood (age 22) using variable-centered latent growth models, b) examine transitions into and out of polytobacco use classes, as well as predictors of these classes, from early adolescence (age 12) to emerging adulthood (age 22) using person-centered latent transition analysis, and c) examine interactions among individual (e.g., motives for use; sensation seeking), interpersonal (e.g., parent modeling and rules), and contextual (e.g., geographic location) factors in predicting trajectories of single tobacco product use and transitions in polytobacco use. These analyses will not only provide crucial information about the emergence and relative stability of different use patterns over time, but also differences between patterns that are protective versus risky based on a consideration of multifaceted and interacting antecedents. Consequently, our proposal addresses the Food and Drug Administration's research priority to ?identify and explain between- persons differences and within-person changes in tobacco use patterns, including?polyuse of tobacco products (i.e., use of multiple products within the same time-period and switching between multiple products)?. In the long-term, this project can inform evidenced-based public health efforts aimed at preventing or ceasing tobacco use in the earliest stages of use.
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1 |