Clinical Research Directory
Browse clinical research sites, groups, and studies.
Effects of Tobacco Abuse Liability-dependent Taxes in the ETM
Sponsor: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Summary
In a within-subject design, cigarette smokers, stratified by age, will purchase tobacco products under three tax rate conditions based on abuse liability, that is taxes based on: (1) product category score (i.e. score ranging from 0-1 based on abuse liability effect sizes); (2) product category rank (i.e. position of a product relative to all others; e.g. 1st, 5th); and (3) product tiers (i.e. low-, medium-, high abuse liability), as well as a control. In the ETM, the effects of these interventions will be examined on cigarette demand and other products substitution. The investigators will use a repeated-measures (within subject) analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test if there are differences between conditions (i.e., tax proposals) independently for each product. The models will include study design parameters for order effects to account for counterbalancing the tax conditions in the ETM. Each tax condition will be compared to the control. All distributional assumptions will be checked prior to analyses and the appropriate transformations will be employed, if needed. For each significant result from the omnibus test, the investigators will perform planned contrasts to test the proposed hypotheses previously described. Note that the omnibus test can result in a significant finding while the contrasts of interest may be non-significant. In this case, the investigators will only report the results from the planned contrasts. Additional analyses might be conducted.
Official title: Innovative Policy: Effects of Tobacco Abuse Liability-dependent Taxes in the ETM
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
21 Years - Any
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
51
Start Date
2026-07-31
Completion Date
2027-04-07
Last Updated
2026-03-24
Healthy Volunteers
No
Conditions
Interventions
Control
In the control condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM. Cigarettes will increase in price across trials.
Product Category Score
In the product category score condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM where the percentage of taxes applied to each product category will be distributed between 0% and 100% proportional to their abuse liability score. Abuse liability scores will be scaled such that the product category with the highest abuse liability will be taxed at 100%.
Product Category Rank
In the product category rank condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM where the tax percentage applied to each product category will be determined by the number of categories and their position in the ranking. The product category with the highest abuse liability will be taxed at 100%; the product with the lowest abuse liability will be taxed at 0%. All other tax rates will be equally spaced across other products based on ranking.
Product Tiers
In the product tiers condition, participants will purchase tobacco/nicotine products in the ETM where tobacco products will be placed in tax tiers to simplify the existing complex tobacco tax system. The investigators will use three tax tiers (i.e., high tax, medium tax, and no tax), as adopted by four states. Products will be placed into tiers depending on their average score (i.e. no tax: \< 0.33, medium tax: 0.33-0.66, and high tax: \>0.66). Products in the high tax tier will be taxed at 100% and products in the medium tax tier will be taxed at 50%.
Locations (1)
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Roanoke, Virginia, United States