Perception of the Food and Drug Administration Electronic Cigarette Flavor Enforcement Policy on Twitter: Observational Study

Abstract

BackgroundOn January 2, 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released the electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) flavor enforcement policy to prohibit the sale of all flavored cartridge–based e-cigarettes, except for menthol and tobacco flavors.ObjectiveThis research aimed to examine the public perception of this FDA flavor enforcement policy and its impact on the public perception of e-cigarettes on Twitter.MethodsA total of 2,341,660 e-cigarette–related tweets and 190,490 FDA flavor enforcement policy–related tweets in the United States were collected from Twitter before (between June 13 and August 22, 2019) and after (between January 2 and March 30, 2020) the announcement of the FDA flavor enforcement policy. Sentiment analysis was conducted to detect the changes in the public perceptions of the policy and e-cigarettes on Twitter. Topic modeling was used for finding frequently discussed topics about e-cigarettes.ResultsThe proportion of negative sentiment tweets about e-cigarettes significantly increased after the announcement of the FDA flavor enforcement policy compared with before the announcement of the policy. In contrast, the overall sentiment toward the FDA flavor enforcement policy became less negative. The FDA flavor enforcement policy was the most popular topic associated with e-cigarettes after the announcement of the FDA flavor enforcement policy. Twitter users who discussed about e-cigarettes started to talk about other alternative ways of getting e-cigarettes after the FDA flavor enforcement policy.ConclusionsTwitter users’ perceptions of e-cigarettes became more negative after the announcement of the FDA flavor enforcement policy.