Teens Less Susceptible to Vaping When Restricted to Tobacco-flavored E-cigarettes: Implications for
Thursday, January 5, 2023
Posted by: Natalia Gromov
Helgertz
S, Kingsbury J.
Teens Less Susceptible to
Vaping When Restricted to Tobacco-flavored E-cigarettes: Implications for
Flavored Tobacco Policies.
[published online ahead of print, 2022 Dec 1]. Nicotine Tob Res. 2022;ntac272.
doi:10.1093/ntr/ntac272
Introduction. Flavors
added to tobacco products increase their appeal to youth and contribute to the
youth vaping epidemic. To address this problem, over 340 localities have
implemented various policies to restrict access to flavored tobacco products.
Few studies have examined the extent to which restricting available e-cigarette
flavors might affect e-cigarette initiation or cessation among youth.
Methods. A
representative sample of Minnesota teens were asked about their use of
e-cigarettes, symptoms of e-cigarette dependence and their willingness to use
an e-cigarette under four flavor conditions: unspecified (any flavor); menthol,
tobacco, or unflavored. Respondents with data on all four flavor conditions
were included in the analysis (N=2,151).
Results. Cochran's
Q, McNemar, and exact binomial tests revealed that susceptibility to
e-cigarette use was highest when the flavor was unspecified (38.2%), lower for
unflavored (29.7%) and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes (26.7%), and lowest when
the flavor was tobacco (21.0%). Among the subsets of students who had never
tried e-cigarettes and students who reported signs of e-cigarette dependence,
the largest decrease in susceptibility from unspecified flavor e-cigarettes was
observed for tobacco flavor, a decrease of 12.7 and 19.6 percentage points,
respectively.
Conclusions. Whether
teens had no experience using e-cigarettes or showed signs of dependence, the
percentage of teens who were susceptible to using e-cigarettes was
significantly lower when the flavor available was restricted. Susceptibility
was lower for tobacco- and menthol-flavored than unflavored e-cigarettes,
suggesting that teens consider these flavors aversive.
Implications. These
results suggest that policies that eliminate all e-cigarette flavors except
tobacco may be a powerful tool for advancing youth e-cigarette prevention and
cessation goals by reducing the appeal of e-cigarettes to teens with different
levels of experience with them, including teens who have never tried
e-cigarettes and those who may find it difficult to quit using them.
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