Grace Kong, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry has received an R01 grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP).
The $1.3 million mixed-methods study (i.e., machine learning, survey methodology, expert evaluation) will examine youth-accessible information on YouTube regarding how e-cigarettes are modified and “hacked.”
The results of the study will provide the FDA with novel evidence to develop regulations to prohibit the manufacturing and marketing of modifiable e-cigarette components, restrict youth-accessible marketing of e-cigarettes on YouTube, and educate youth about the harms of engaging in these behaviors.
Kong’s research interests include understanding substance use health disparities among youth, the use of social media for tobacco marketing, novel tobacco use behaviors among youth, and developing innovative adolescent tobacco/cessation interventions for youth.