Many Teenagers Addicted to E-cigarettes; Study Finds They Repeatedly Try, and Fail, Quitting

A new study “Prevalence and Factors Associated with Youth Vaping Cessation Intention and Quit Attempts,” in the September 2021 issue of Pediatrics (published online Aug. 18) shows that many teenagers are addicted to e-cigarettes and are having trouble quitting. Researchers analyzed data from the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which included 14,531 high school and middle school students from 180 schools and found 53.4% of current e-cigarette users reported an intention to quit vaping, and 67.4% had already tried to quit vaping. The average number of quit attempts reported was 5.3 times. The study cites the rising prevalence of vaping, which has risen to epidemic levels among U.S. adolescents, and a national outbreak of severe respiratory diseases related to vaping in 2019. Over half (55%) of e-cigarette users in the study said they thought e-cigarettes were harmful, and this perception was associated with repeated attempts to quit. However, about 44.5% of e-cigarette users still perceived e-cigarette use as not harmful to their health. The study states that public health campaigns are important—e-cigarette users who reported having seen or heard “The Real Cost” campaign were more likely to want to quit vaping. The authors conclude that these findings should help inform the development of vaping cessation programs to take gender, e-cigarette devices, harm perception, and nicotine dependence into account, but more research is needed into cessation strategies for adolescents who use e-cigarettes.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.