E-Cigarette Use in Teens Prevalent During COVID-19 Pandemic

MONDAY, Oct. 4, 2021 (HealthDay News) — During 2021, among youth currently using electronic cigarettes, 27.6 percent of high-school students and 8.3 percent of middle-school students reported daily use, according to research published in the Oct. 1 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Eunice Park-Lee, Ph.D., from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland, and colleagues analyzed nationally representative data from the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey of U.S. middle school and high school students conducted during Jan. 18 to May 21, 2021, to assess current e-cigarette use. Data were included from 20,413 students from 279 schools.

The researchers found that 11.3 and 2.8 percent of high school and middle school students, respectively, reported current e-cigarette use in 2021. Among current e-cigarette users, 43.6 and 17.2 percent of high school and middle school students, respectively, reported e-cigarette use on ≥20 of the past 30 days; daily use was 27.6 and 8.3 percent, respectively. The most commonly used device type was disposables among both middle and high school current e-cigarette users, followed by prefilled or refillable pods or cartridges and tanks or mod systems. Overall, 26.1 and 30.3 percent of high school and middle school users, respectively, reported that their usual brand was Puff Bar. Flavored e-cigarettes were used by 84.7 percent of current youth e-cigarette users.

“This study shows that even during the COVID-19 pandemic, e-cigarette use among youth remains a serious public health concern,” Karen Hacker, M.D., M.P.H., director of the CDC National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, said in a statement.

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