2.5 Million Middle and High Schoolers Report Smoking E-Cigarettes

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 12, 2022 (HealthDay News) — An estimated 2.5 million youth reported electronic cigarette use in 2022, according to research published in the Oct. 7 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Maria Cooper, Ph.D., from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland, and colleagues analyzed nationally representative data from the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey. The analysis included 28,291 U.S. middle school (grades 6 to 8) and high school (grades 9 to 12) students.

The researchers found that 14.1 percent of high school students and 3.3 percent of middle school students reported current e-cigarette use (roughly 2.5 million). Nearly half (46 percent) of current e-cigarette users reported using e-cigarettes frequently, and 27.6 percent reported daily use. Disposables, followed by prefilled or refillable pods or cartridges, and tanks or mod systems were the most commonly used device types among current users. The vast majority of current e-cigarette users (84.9 percent) used flavored e-cigarettes, including fruit (69.1 percent); candy, desserts, or other sweets (38.3 percent); mint (29.4 percent); and menthol (26.6 percent).

“Sustained implementation of comprehensive tobacco prevention and control strategies at the national, state, and local levels, coupled with FDA regulation and enforcement, is critical to addressing e-cigarette use among middle and high school students,” the authors write.