Evaluating the Effects of Denmark’s New Tobacco Control Act on Young People’s Use of Nicotine Products: A Study Protocol of the §SMOKE Study

Abstract

(1) Background: In December 2020, a broad majority of political parties in Denmark agreed on a new tobacco control act. In addition, price increases on tobacco in 2020 and 2022 became part of the Danish Finance Act. This study protocol describes the study “§SMOKE–A Study of Tobacco, Behavior, and Regulations” designed to monitor and evaluate the implementation and effect of the new strengthened tobacco control acts. The overall aim is to monitor tobacco use among young people before, during, and after implementation of the new tobacco control legislation, including an increased price on tobacco, a ban on point-of-sale tobacco displays, and plain packaging. Subgoals are to monitor overall use of nicotine products, attitudes, and norms. (2) Methods: This study is designed as a five-year impact evaluation with repeated cross-sectional survey data collections. The baseline survey was conducted before implementing an increased price on tobacco, the first step in the new legislation, initiated 1 April 2020. Study participants (n = 37,500) were a random sample of individuals living in Denmark aged 15 to 29 years. (3) Conclusions: This study examines the impact of the new strengthened tobacco control legislation in Denmark from 2020 to 2025. The findings of this study are relevant to other countries facing implementation of similar measures to explore intended and unintended consequences of the legislation and help to identify how the legislation could be further improved.

Use of Tobacco and Nicotine Products among Young People in Denmark—Status in Single and Dual Use

“…To ensure that essential analyses could be made, including investigating changes in tobacco patterns over the study period as well as subgroup-and stratified analyses, the requested sample size was set to 15,000 respondents. With an expected response rate in this age group at 40%, we invited 37,500 persons to the study [19].…”

“…Further, we examined the distribution of responses and non-responses according to region in Denmark and found that the distributions did not markedly differ. The weights ensured representability of the study sample and reduced the impact of non-responses (for more detailed information, see also [19]).…”