New study reveals alarming trend of nicotine vaping among Canadian high school students

Today’s news, April 5: according to foreign media reports, a new study conducted by Jamie Seabrook of Brescia University College and Evan R. Wiley of Western University shows that a striking number of Canadian high school students—26%—reported using e-cigarettes in the past month.

Researchers say what they are inhaling through e-cigarettes is even more concerning.

The researchers found that 12% of high school students reported using only nicotine-containing e-cigarettes in the previous month, while 11.3% used both nicotine and nicotine-free e-cigarettes, and a small proportion reported using only nicotine-free e-cigarettes.

“E-cigarettes were originally marketed as a potential smoking solution and claimed to be a less harmful alternative. While we are still working to fully understand the long-term effects of e-cigarettes on physical and mental health, our research shows that e-cigarettes are exposing young people to nicotine dependence and putting them at risk of nicotine addiction,” said Seabrook, Dean of the Faculty of Food and Nutritional Sciences at Brescia University College.

“Young people who use nicotine-free e-cigarette products tend to have a poorer understanding of the risks associated with e-cigarette chemicals. That may translate into uninformed use, and they may conclude that the dangers of smoking have also been exaggerated,” Seabrook said.

The study, published in the journal Children, was based on a national survey of 38,299 students in grades 9 through 12. It examined the prevalence of nicotine e-cigarettes, nicotine-free e-cigarettes, and dual-use e-cigarettes in the past month, as well as differences in sociodemographic and health-related correlates among high school students.

Seabrook said: “E-cigarette use has been studied before, but we wanted to dig deeper to see why young people vape and how that relates to age, gender, and use of other substances such as alcohol and tobacco.”

“Previous studies have tended to treat e-cigarette use as a single behavior, even though some people use nicotine e-cigarettes while others use nicotine-free products. Exploring the potential differences between these groups gives policymakers a better opportunity to implement more targeted interventions,” said Wiley, a data analyst in Western’s Program of Experimental Medicine (POEM) at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.

The study showed that male high school students had higher odds than female students of falling into every category of e-cigarette use in the past month. Substance use was also associated with greater odds of students using both nicotine and non-nicotine e-cigarettes.

The study also found that compared with grade 9 students, students in grades 10 and 11 were more likely to use nicotine-only e-cigarettes, while grade 9 students were more likely than students in grades 11 and 12 to use both nicotine and nicotine-free e-cigarettes.

Seabrook also pointed out that grade 9 students were more likely to be dual users of e-cigarettes, which deserves further investigation, as it may be related to behavioral and cultural pressures associated with the transition into high school. It could also mean that as they get older, more high school students are shifting from dual-use e-cigarettes to exclusive nicotine e-cigarette use.

“Because this is a cross-sectional analysis and we looked at all the different age groups at the same time, we cannot determine whether dual e-cigarette use leads to an increase in exclusive nicotine e-cigarette use. Our findings do suggest that possibility, but it needs careful investigation,” Seabrook said.