US RESEARCH has revealed that while there have been recent decreases in nicotine vaping prevalence among younger people, those who continue to vape are becoming more nicotine-dependent and are less able to successfully quit.
The team looked at data from over 115,000 young people in the 8th to 12th grades in the US, and found the prevalence of having vaped in the past 30 days had declined from 2020 to 2024.
However, among those who did vape, the prevalence of daily vaping rose from 15% to 29%, and unsuccessful quit attempts increased from 28% to 53%.
"Increasing daily nicotine vaping raises concerns, as daily vaping may be associated with more adverse cardiovascular, respiratory, addiction, and mental health outcomes compared with less frequent vaping," the team noted.
The researchers proposed several possible reasons for the trends.
One is that people are more likely to attempt quitting due to increasing perceived harms and social ostracisation - which is a positive thing, but with more attempts comes more failures.
Another is that adolescents might be moving toward using more addictive vaping products as the market shifts to disposable products that contain higher nicotine concentrations, have more puffs per unit, and contain nicotine salt formulations.
The researchers noted that users of other substances, such as cannabis, alcohol or tobacco products other than e-cigarettes, did not show the same substantial declines in current nicotine vaping prevalence compared with the nonusing population.
Other trends included an increase in females and non-Hispanic Black youths who vape, while vaping among rural youth more than doubled from 2020 to 2024.
"Tailored cessation interventions for youths with frequent nicotine vaping, with particular focus on certain demographics (i.e. females, non-Hispanic Black youths); on those who use cannabis, alcohol, or other tobacco products; and on those living in rural communities, may be warranted to offset the progression of these trends and worsening of related negative health outcomes," the researchers concluded.
Read the paper HERE. KB
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