Vaping crisis tightens its grip on America’s children: Number of US teens who have tried e-cigarettes by age 14 has TRIPLED in five years
- 28% of e-cigarette users in 2018 say they started vaping at age 14 or younger
- This is a three-fold increase from the 9% of vapers who reported the same thing in 2014
- Teens who started vaping at age 16 or 17 fell from 63% in 2014 to 43% in 2018
- Number of users of cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco didn’t change
The number of US teenagers who begin vaping at age 14 or younger has tripled in the last five years, a new study says.
Researchers found that 28 percent of e-cigarette users in 2018 said they started vaping no later than 14 years old.
That’s more than a three-fold spike from the nine percent who reported the same thing in 2014.
The team, from the University of Michigan School of Nursing, says the findings are worrying and that health campaigns targeted towards pre-teens explaining the dangers of vaping are urgently needed to reverse the trend.
A new study from the University of Michigan School of Nursing has found that 28% of vapers said they started using e-cigarettes at age 14 or younger, an increase from 9% in 2014 (file image)
E-cigarettes, which first hit the US market in the mid-2000s, are the most used tobacco product among US teens.
The 2016 Surgeon General’s report found a 900 percent increase in e-cigarette use among young people from 2011 to 2015.
Lead author Dr Rebecca Evans-Polce, an assistant research scientist at the U-M School of Nursing, told DailyMail.com that, with the increasing in vaping as a whole in recent years, the team wanted to see if there was a difference in starting ages.
For the new study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, the team analyzed data from the National Youth Tobacco survey from 2014 to 2018, which is carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 26,600 participants, ages 16 and 17, were asked how old they were when they first tried e-cigarettes, traditional cigarettes, cigars and/or chewing tobacco.
In 2014, 63 percent said they first tried e-cigarettes at age 16 or 17. By 2018, that number fell to nearly 43 percent.
Conversely, the number of e-cigarette users who began at age 14 tripled over the same time period.
‘I expected to see some increase in kids vaping because of the increase of vaping overall, but the change in five short years was a surprise,’ said Dr Evans-Polce.
‘This really suggests we kind of need to work on strategies to prevent vaping among kids, and tailor it towards even younger kids.’
The findings showed, however, that use of other products – particularly cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco – remained steady over the study time period.
Proponents have touted e-cigarettes as healthier, safer alternatives to traditional tobacco products.
The researchers say this perception – that e-cigarettes aren’t as harmful or addictive as traditional cigarettes – could partly be to blame for the rise in use.
Health experts have argues that many of the toxic substances in vapes make them harmful.
This includes ultra-fine particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs, flavorings that have been linked to a serious lung disease and an increased risk of oral cancer.
Additionally, Dr Evans-Polce says past research has shown that e-cigarette use at a young age is linked to increased risk for cigarette smoking later in life.
This study did not look specifically at what caused the increase, which the team would like to examine in future research.
‘It’s important to understand why kids are starting vaping so young and if there are particular groups at risk for starting vaping at a younger age,’ said Dr Evans-Polce.