Background and objectives:
In the past decade there has been a surge in the promotion of health and prevention of smoking in young people. Unitab, the tobaccology unit of sapienza university of rome (italy), frequently organizes different awareness-raising campaigns aimed at increasing awareness on tobacco related issues, encouraging young people to stop smoking. The main objective of this qualitative study was to have a deeper understanding of young people’s perception of the risks of new tobacco products and their use.

Methods:
A questionnaire was administered to young women on the occasion of world women’s day, the 8th of march 2022. The questionnaire was divided in 2 sections: the first contained 8 different questions addressed to everyone; the second consisted of 14 questions specifically addressed to smokers and former smokers regarding past use of tobacco products and whether they tried new products.

Results:
331 women were recruited. out of these 63.5% were non smokers (10% former smokers), 36.5% smokers. 52,9% only used traditional tobacco products, 21,5% htps and traditional products, 16,5% only smoked htps and 9,1% used electronic cigarettes or other tobacco products. 69,43% tried htps, mostly out of curiosity (34,94%), 33,73% believed htps were less harmful. interestingly, only 28% said they tried htps in order to reduce smoking/quit. 63,27% have tried to quit smoking; 27% succeeded at the first try, 21,53% the second and 11,81% needed three or more attempts.

Conclusions:
There is a great need for new prevention methods as there is a wide misconception that new tobacco products are less damaging than the established products. Further studies are needed in order to understand the risks of new tobacco products to counteract misleading information.