US NCHS Survey: Most Vape Users Are Former Traditional Smokers

On June 19, researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that e-cigarette use among adults has stabilized, and most users are former traditional smokers.

According to the 2018 survey, 3.2% of adults aged 18 and older reported currently using e-cigarettes, the same proportion recorded in 2016, according to Dr. Maria Villarroel and her colleagues at NCHS. In addition, researchers wrote in an NCHS data brief that 14.9% of respondents reported having tried e-cigarettes in 2018, compared with 13.9% in 2014 and 15.3% in 2016.

The report also added that adults who reported quitting smoking within the past year were the most likely to use e-cigarettes: one-quarter (25.2%) reported current e-cigarette use, while more than half (57.35%) said they had used e-cigarettes at some point. By comparison, in the 2018 survey, only 1.1% of never-smokers and 1.7% of former smokers who had quit at least five years earlier reported currently using e-cigarettes.

Based on these data, the latest vaping figures from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) also found that e-cigarette use was most common among recently quit smokers and current smokers.

Chris Bostic, deputy policy director of the anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said the apparent role of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation should not be ignored. However, youth smoking rates remain a concern.

Bostic said: “The ideal policy would be to find a way for adult smokers to have access to these products while also preventing minors from getting them, but we’ve seen how difficult that is. If e-cigarettes are on the market, kids will find them.”

According to CDC data, in 2018 and 2019 alone, youth vaping increased sharply. However, many public health experts believe those figures are not entirely realistic. In fact, a recent study published in Pediatrics showed that as e-cigarette use increased between 2011 and 2018, adolescent smokers reduced both the number of cigarettes smoked per day and the number of days they smoked.