Thursday, January 18, 2018

1.7 Million High Schoolers Vaped in 2016, As Both Vaping and Smoking Declined



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2016 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) shows that 1.08 million (7.2%) American high school students used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days, 580,000 (3.9%) smoked, and 660,000 (4.4%) used both products.

Compared with 2015, smoking declined by about 14% and vaping by 28%.
The apparent spike in e-cigarette use from 2013 to 2014 was partially due to what scientific researchers refer to as an artifact, as it stemmed from a change in the survey design.  Questions about e-cigarette use were bundled with those for other rarely used tobacco products until 2014, when they appeared in a separate section. 

The NYTS also collected information on how many days e-cigarettes were used in the past month.  The chart below shows that 7 out of 10 students who vaped but did not smoke used e-cigarettes five days or fewer.  This is basically “party” or “weekend” vaping, rather than regular use.  While half of high school students who vaped and smoked used e-cigs five or fewer days, 22% used them all 30 days.





Last June, the CDC published selected information from the 2016 NYTS (here), listing smoking and vaping rates separately, effectively double-counting the 660,000 high-schoolers who vaped and smoked.  The CDC only released the full NYTS data set earlier this month (here).
   
The federal data confirm that e-cigarette experimentation by youth since 2011 has not produced an epidemic of smoking.  In fact, the decline in youth smoking accelerated to a record low rate.

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