Public Perceptions and Discussions of Premium Cigars on Reddit

IntroductionWhile premium cigars have similar addictive, toxic, and carcinogenic constituents as other cigars and cigarettes, about 1% of the US adults reported premium cigar use from 2010 to 2019. This study aimed to understand public perceptions and discussions of premium cigars on Reddit, one of the most popular social media platforms. MethodsUsing keywords such as "premium cigar", we extracted 2,238 Reddit posts from Reddit Archive between July 2019 and June 2021. Among them, 1,626 posts were related to premium cigars. By employing the inductive approach, we manually coded each Reddit post on premium cigars to understand public perceptions and discussions of premium cigars by summarizing them into different topics and subtopics. ResultsLongitudinal analysis showed that the number of Reddit posts on premium cigars increased since June 2020. Content analysis showed that among Reddit posts related to premium cigars, the most popular topic is "Information sharing" (75.72%), in which Reddit users shared their perceptions about premium cigars, asked for advice, and provided some recommendations about premium cigars. Over one-quarter of posts (27.17%) are sharing user experiences of premium cigars (such as taste). Nearly one-fifth (18.99%) of posts are discussing the affordability of premium cigars. In addition, 7.87% of posts are discussing legal/policy issues related to premium cigars, and 6.82% of posts are related to the health risks of premium cigars compared to cigarettes. ConclusionsPublic perceptions including misperceptions, user experiences, and affordability related to premium cigars have been actively discussed on Reddit. ImplicationsWith the increasing trend of premium cigar use, it is necessary to understand how premium cigars are perceived by the public and why they are becoming more popular. This study provides the first evidence on public perceptions and discussions of premium cigars on social media, which could provide useful information on future regulatory policies that aim to prevent the prevalence of premium cigars to protect public health.