Rutgers researchers call for a balanced approach to examining recent trends in adult e-cigarette use.
Julia Chen-Sankey, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy at the Rutgers School of Public Health, and Michelle T. Bover-Manderski, an instructor in the Rutgers Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, said that while there While there are clear health concerns with e-cigarette use, particularly adoption by those who have never used tobacco products before, there are also potential benefits that cannot be ignored.
Rutgers researchers published an invited commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open, reviewing new data on the trend of e-cigarette use among American adults. Chen-Sankey and Bover-Manderski, who are also researchers at the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies, discussed the need for a public health approach that balances the risks with the potential of e-cigarettes to facilitate cessation of combustible cigarette smoking by of adults
You reviewed a study that raised important questions about e-cigarette use among US adults. What did this study find and what questions has it raised about public health policy?
Chen-Sankey: The paper looked at recent trends in adult e-cigarette use in the United States in 2017, 2018, and 2020. Among the findings was the observation that although current e-cigarette use electronic devices, defined as vaping in the previous 30 days, by young adults aged 18 to 20 decreased between 2018 and 2020, increased in other age groups. Daily use of e-cigarettes among current users also increased.
But perhaps most alarmingly, e-cigarette use increased significantly for people who never smoked combustible cigarettes. It also declined among combustible cigarette smokers trying to quit, despite the potential for e-cigarettes to help people quit.
Bover-Manderski: In terms of how these conflicting findings should be applied to health policy, concerns about the dangers of e-cigarette use among tobacco-initiated youth need to be balanced with the potential benefits that electronic cigarettes can have. for people who want to quit smoking combustible cigarettes.
How can we achieve this balance?
Chen-Sankey: There are several policy developments and strategies that may be helpful in ensuring that the net public health benefit of e-cigarette use is not overshadowed by its harm. For example, the recent approval of e-cigarette products by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) through its premarket tobacco product application pathway may help establish public confidence in authorized electronic cigarette products.
The FDA is also likely to authorize certain e-cigarettes as modified-risk tobacco products, which may help encourage smokers to view e-cigarettes as a tool to quit smoking combustible cigarettes.
Bover-Manderski: In addition, to increase combustible cigarette smokers’ acceptance of using e-cigarettes to quit smoking, public health education and media communication strategies should focus on evidence-based outcomes related to reduced harm associated with switching to e-cigarettes.
Why do you think some adults who smoke combustible cigarettes have stopped smoking as a means of quitting?
Chen-Sankey: Over the past five years or so, e-cigarette products have become less attractive to combustible smokers interested in quitting, but more attractive to people who have never smoked. A few factors may help explain this discouraging pattern.
On the one hand, local and national policies aimed at reducing e-cigarette use among youth may simultaneously reduce adult smokers’ interest in and use of e-cigarettes when they attempt to quit. In addition, the media may have altered smokers’ understanding of vaping due to the substantially greater volume of media coverage of the risks of vaping for youth compared to the potential benefits of vaping for adult combustible cigarette smokers. .
Bover-Manderski: It’s also likely that public health groups and health professionals have emphasized the risks of vaping for youth over the potential benefits for adults who use combustible tobacco.
One bright spot in the research is a substantial decline in e-cigarette use by young adults aged 18-20. What explains this decline?
Chen-Sankey: The discrepancy may be associated with 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. Another potential explanation for the disproportionate reduction is national. restrictions on certain e-cigarettes based on flavored cartridges implemented in February 2020, a policy that may have greatly reduced the appeal of e-cigarettes among young people.
Bover-Manderski: And, of course, we can’t overlook the lockdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing requirements, which may have limited opportunities for this group to use e-cigarettes in social settings or groups
Source:
Journal reference:
10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.23274