Rutgers researchers are calling for a balanced approach to examining recent trends in adult e-cigarette use.

Julia Chen-Sankey, an assistant professor within the Department of Health Behavior, Society and Policy on the Rutgers School of Public Health, and Michelle T. Bover-Manderski, an instructor within the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Rutgers, said that while there are clear health concerns with e-cigarette use, particularly the adoption by those that previously hadn’t used tobacco products, there are also potential advantages that cannot be ignored.

The Rutgers researchers published an invited commentary within the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open, reviewing latest data on the trend of e-cigarette use amongst U.S. adults. Chen-Sankey and Bover-Manderski, who’re also researchers on the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies, discussed the necessity for a public health approach that balances the risks with the potential of e-cigarettes to facilitate cessation of flamable cigarette smoking by adults.

You reviewed a study that raised necessary questions on e-cigarette use amongst U.S. adults. What did that study find, and what questions has it raised about public health policy?

Chen-Sankey: The paper was on recent trends in adult e-cigarette use in america in 2017, 2018 and 2020. Among the many findings was the commentary that while current e-cigarette use – defined as vaping within the previous 30 days – by young adults ages 18 to twenty years declined between 2018 and 2020, it increased in other age groups. Every day e-cigarette use amongst current users also increased.

But perhaps most alarming, e-cigarette use increased significantly for individuals who never smoked flamable cigarettes. It also decreased amongst flamable cigarette smokers attempting to quit – despite the potential that e-cigarettes have in helping people to quit smoking.

Bover-Manderski: By way of how these conflicting findings needs to be applied to health policy, there’s a must balance concerns in regards to the dangers of e-cigarette use amongst young people latest to tobacco products with the potential advantages that e-cigarettes can have for individuals who need to quit smoking flamable cigarettes.

How can we strike that balance?

Chen-Sankey: There are several policy advances and methods that could be helpful in ensuring that the online public health good thing about e-cigarette use shouldn’t be eclipsed by its harm. As an illustration, the recent authorization of e-cigarette products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) through its Premarket Tobacco Product Applications pathway may help to determine public trust in authorized e-cigarette products.

The FDA can be prone to authorize certain e-cigarettes as modified-risk tobacco products, which can help encourage smokers to see e-cigarettes as a tool to quit smoking flamable cigarettes.

Bover-Manderski: Moreover, to spice up flamable cigarette smokers’ acceptance of using e-cigarettes for smoking cessation, public health education and mass media communication strategies should give attention to evidence-based results pertaining to the reduced harm related to switching to e-cigarettes.

Why do you’re thinking that some adults who smoke flamable cigarettes have turned away from vaping as a way of quitting?

Chen-Sankey: Over the past five years or so, e-cigarette products have change into less appealing to flamable smokers concerned with quitting but more appealing to individuals who have never smoked. A number of aspects may also help explain this discouraging pattern.

For one, local and national policies intended to cut back the usage of e-cigarettes amongst youths may concurrently reduce adult smokers’ interest in and use of e-cigarettes when attempting to quit. Moreover, the media can have altered smokers’ understanding of vaping due to the substantially higher volume of media coverage of vaping risks for teens compared with the potential advantages of vaping for adult flamable cigarette smokers.

Bover-Manderski: It is also likely that public health groups and health care professionals can have emphasized the risks of vaping for teens over the potential advantages for adults who use flamable tobacco.

A brilliant spot within the research is a considerable decline in e-cigarette use by young adults ages 18 to twenty. What accounts for this dip?

Chen-Sankey: The discrepancy could also be related to the Tobacco to 21 Act that restricted the sale of tobacco and nicotine delivery products, including e-cigarettes, to this age group nationwide starting in January 2020. One other potential explanation for the disproportional reduction is national restrictions on certain flavored cartridge-based e-cigarettes implemented in February 2020, a policy that will have considerably reduced the appeal of e-cigarettes amongst young people.

Bover-Manderski: And in fact, we won’t overlook COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns and social-distancing requirements, which can have limited this group’s opportunities to make use of e-cigarettes in social or group settings.

Source:

Journal reference:

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.23274