In the US, 49.2% of young daily vapers chose e-cigarettes with 4% or more nicotine — News-Medical

In the United States, by 2022, 49.2% of people aged 18–24 who used electronic cigarettes daily used products with a nicotine content of at least 4%. Researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California San Diego found that such use was associated with higher levels of nicotine dependence and lower odds of abstaining from vaping.

News-Medical reports on the findings of the study, published in the journal Tobacco Control. The scientists analyzed data from the U.S. national Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study for 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2022, and also tracked the behavior of 2,356 adult e-cigarette users from 2019 to 2022.

Differences between age groups

In 2017, fewer than 4% of surveyed vapers reported using electronic cigarettes with a nicotine content of at least 4%. Among daily vapers aged 18–24, this figure rose from 3.1% in 2017 to 40.1% in 2019 and 49.2% in 2022.

For comparison, in 2022, such products were used by 32.8% of daily vapers aged 25–34, 17.6% of respondents aged 35–54, and 4.5% of people aged 55 and older. Overall, the odds of using a high-nicotine electronic cigarette among vapers aged 18–24 were 12 times higher than among people aged 55 and older.

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Association with dependence

The authors noted that the growing use of high-nicotine electronic cigarettes coincided with increasing nicotine dependence scores among young people who used only electronic cigarettes. In 2017, their level of dependence was significantly lower than that of peers who smoked only conventional cigarettes. By 2022, this figure had risen to a level equivalent to that of young people who smoked only cigarettes in 2017.

Among vapers in 2019, those who used high-nicotine products had 31% lower odds of abstaining from vaping by 2022. Overall, by 2022, 40.9% of participants who used electronic cigarettes in 2019 had abstained from vaping.

The scientists emphasized that the study is observational and therefore does not prove a direct causal link between high nicotine content and increased dependence. They also noted that some participants, especially during the first two years, did not know the nicotine content of their electronic cigarettes.