Perceptions of usual cigarette brand harmfulness compared with other brands among adults who smoke whose usual/current brand of cigarettes has a flavour capsule compared with no capsule across four countries of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Surveys, weighted*
| Harm of usual brand compared with others† | Brazil | P value‡ | Japan | P value‡ | ||
| Flavour capsule (n=74) | No capsule (n=1127) | Flavour capsule (n=485) | No capsule (n=2211) | |||
| % | % | % | % | |||
| Little less harmful | 13.7 (6.3, 27.3)§ | 19.1 (16.0, 22.7) | 0.372 | 8.8 (4.3, 17.1)§ | 6.9 (5.1, 9.2) | 0.533 |
| No different | 58.0 (38.6, 75.2) | 70.6 (66.5, 74.4) | 0.175 | 85.0 (76.8, 90.6) | 77.2 (72.8, 81.1) | 0.084 |
| Little more harmful | 28.3 (13.1, 50.9)§ | 10.2 (7.9, 13.3) | 0.011 | 6.2 (4.0, 9.6) | 15.9 (12.4, 20.1) | <0.001 |
| Republic of Korea | Malaysia | |||||
| Flavour capsule (n=1216) | No capsule (n=2414) | Flavour capsule (n=332) | No capsule (n=719) | |||
| Little less harmful | 11.5 (4.4, 26.8)§ | 8.7 (4.2, 16.9) | 0.633 | 18.5 (13.3, 25.0) | 11.1 (8.5, 14.4) | 0.016 |
| No different | 74.2 (61.4, 83.8) | 78.5 (71.8, 84.0) | 0.496 | 66.9 (58.6, 73.6) | 78.6 (74.5, 82.1) | 0.003 |
| Little more harmful | 14.3 (8.8, 22.6) | 12.8 (10.1, 16.1) | 0.681 | 14.6 (10.1, 20.6) | 10.3 (7.9, 13.4) | 0.128 |
*See online supplemental table 6 for full table, including n.
†"Do you think that the brand you usually/currently smoke, might be a little less harmful, no different, or a little more harmful, compared to other cigarette brands?” This question was not asked in the Wave 8 (2021) ITC Mexico study. However, ITC Mexico data from 2018 to 2020 captured relative harm perceptions in a recent study.5
‡P values from weighted χ2 tests comparing the proportion of each outcome by usual brand flavour capsule versus no capsule; bolded= p<0.05.
§Indicates high sampling variability; relative SE >0.3; interpret with caution.