The Impact of Standardized Tobacco Product Packaging on Young Adults in the Retail Environment

October 21, 2025 updated by: RAND
The overall aim of this research is to experimentally evaluate the extent to which partially standardizing the color of tobacco packaging influences tobacco use intentions among young adults who have varying levels of tobacco use experience.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

433

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Pennsylvania
      • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, 15213
        • RAND Corporation

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Ages 21-34
  • Past month cigarette smoker

Exclusion Criteria:

  • None.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Status Quo Packages
Cigarette packages appear as they normally do - no standardization
Behavioral: Package standardization
Conditions vary in terms of amount of cigarette packages that are subject to standardization
Experimental: Partial standardization
Cigarette packages appear with half of the package using a standardized color
Behavioral: Package standardization
Conditions vary in terms of amount of cigarette packages that are subject to standardization
Experimental: Full standardization
Cigarette packages appear with all of the packages fully standardized (by color and font)
Behavioral: Package standardization
Conditions vary in terms of amount of cigarette packages that are subject to standardization

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Quit Smoking Motivation
Time Frame: Immediately after shopping in the RAND StoreLab

Motivation to quit smoking as assessed by the Motivation to Stop Scale (MTSS; Kotz et al., 2013; Drug and Alcohol Dependence) participants endorsing one of 7 items:

  1. = I don't want to stop smoking.
  2. = I think I should stop smoking but don't really want to.
  3. = I want to stop smoking but haven't thought about when.
  4. = I REALLY want to stop smoking but I don't know when I will.
  5. = I want to stop smoking and hope to soon.
  6. = I REALLY want to stop smoking and intend to in the next 3 months.
  7. = I REALLY want to stop smoking and intend to in the next month.
Immediately after shopping in the RAND StoreLab

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

RAND

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

May 15, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 14, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

May 14, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 25, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 1, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

August 3, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimated)

October 29, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 21, 2025

Last Verified

October 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • R01CA261639 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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