Cigarette design features in low-,middle-,and high-income countries

Previous studies have shown that country income grouping is correlated with cigarette engineering. cigarettes (n=111 brands) were purchased during 2008-2010 from 11 low-,middle-,and high-income countries to assess physical dimensions and an array of cigarette design features. mean ventilation varied significantly across low- (7.5),middle- (15.3),and high-income (26.2) countries (p0.001). differences across income groups were also seen in cigarette length (p=0.001),length of the tipping paper (p=0.01),filter weight (p=0.017),number of vent rows (p=0.003),per-cigarette tobacco weight (p=0.04),and paper porosity (p=0.008). stepwise linear regression showed ventilation and tobacco length as major predictors of iso tar yields in low-income countries (p=0.909,0.047),while tipping paper (p<0.001),filter length (p<0.001),number of vent rows (p=0.014),and per-cigarette weight (p=0.015) were predictors of tar yields in middle-income countries. ventilation (p<0.001),number of vent rows (p=0.009),per-cigarette weight (p<0.001),and filter diameter (p=0.004) predicted tar yields in high-income countries. health officials must be cognizant of cigarette design issues to provide effective regulation of tobacco products. copyright © 2012 rosalie v. caruso and richard j. o'connor.