Introduction
This study examines the association between current e-cigarette use at baseline and
regular cigarette smoking at follow-up among U.S. youth.
Methods
A longitudinal analysis of youth (aged 12–17 years) data from Waves 1–3 of the Population
Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study (2013–2016) was conducted between January 2019
and December 2019. Youth who reported past-30-day current e-cigarette use at baseline
were identified and followed for regular cigarette smoking (≥20 days) at follow-up.
Results
Compared with noncurrent e-cigarette users at baseline, current e-cigarette users
(cigarette nonsmokers) had 5.0 (95% CI=1.9, 12.8) times higher odds of becoming regular
cigarette smokers 1 year later. Additionally, there was a direct linear relationship
between the number of days of e-cigarette use at baseline and the number of days of
cigarette smoking 1 year later.
Conclusions
Current e-cigarette use among U.S. youth is associated with higher odds of transitioning
to regular cigarette smoking, likely reflecting robust transitions rather than experimentation.
These results suggest that promoting e-cigarettes as the current practice for tobacco
harm reduction will likely have the unintended consequence of initiating youth cigarette
smokers.
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: March 05, 2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
