Are adolescents influenced in using e-cigarettes?

The study of Wang et al. uses data from the most recent 3 waves of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study surveys to examine trends of overall e-cigarette advertising exposure and advertising exposure from specific media channels among US adolescents and how e-cigarette advertising exposure and parental and peer e-cigarette use were associated with contemporary curiosity about using e-cigarettes and future e-cigarette initiation at follow-up among adolescents who had never used e-cigarettes. Adolescents’ e-cigarette advertising exposure was measured as past 30-day any exposure and exposure through multiple channels. Participants were asked questions such as “In the past 30 days, have you noticed e-cigarettes or other electronic nicotine products being advertised in any of the following places?”. The outcomes were contemporary curiosity about using e-cigarettes and e-cigarette initiation at the 12-month follow-up. Parental and peer use was measured by parental past 30-day e-cigarette use. Other covariates included in this study were biological sex, age in years, race and ethnicity, highest parental education, severity of internalizing and externalizing mental health problems, perception of harm from e-cigarette, current (past 30-day) cigarette smoking status and current (past 30-day) use of other tobacco products. This cohort study found that e-cigarette advertising exposure was high among US adolescents between 2017 and 2019. e-Cigarette advertising exposure and peer use of e-cigarettes were significantly associated with contemporary curiosity about using e-cigarettes and future e-cigarette initiation among adolescents who had never used e-cigarettes.

It is probable that the results of this study reflect a phenomenon present not only in the US adolescents and then, in all over the world, efforts to address the increasing use of vaping among youth need to consider peer influence and incorporate measures reducing e-cigarette advertising exposure.

Reference

Wang Y, Duan Z, Weaver SR, Self-Brown SR, Ashley DL, Emery SL, Huang J. Association of e-Cigarette Advertising, Parental Influence, and Peer Influence With US Adolescent e-Cigarette Use. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Sep 1;5(9):e2233938.