A convergence of aggressive anti-vaping advertising and widespread news coverage of a lung-injury outbreak reversed a decade-long surge in youth vaping, according to UC San Diego researchers. The findings underscore how public health messaging and media attention can drive dramatic shifts in adolescent health behaviors.
The Turnaround
Youth vaping in the United States peaked at 20% in 2019 before beginning a sustained decline, reaching 5.9% by 2024. The reversal coincided with two major media forces: aggressive FDA and state-led campaigns including California’s Tobacco Control Program, and extensive news coverage of the e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) outbreak. EVALI was linked to more than 2,800 hospitalizations and 68 deaths, with nearly 20,000 EVALI-related news articles appearing online between July 2019 and March 2020.
Research Results
Analyzing data from two cycles of the California Student Tobacco Survey, researchers compared quit attempts and intentions among current vapers, and susceptibility to vaping among never-vapers across 2017-18 and 2019-20. Among current vapers, quit attempts nearly doubled from 28.8% to 53.2%, and quitting intentions climbed from 56.9% to 79.1%. Among teens who had never vaped, susceptibility dropped from 30.3% to 25.7%. Notably, EVALI awareness showed stronger predictive power than paid advertising—emerging primarily through news coverage at no direct advertising cost, despite the two major campaigns having combined annual expenditures exceeding $100 million.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://today.ucsd.edu/story/anti-vaping-advertisements-and-lung-injury-news-coverage-helped-reverse-trend-in-teen-vaping