Ecigs Help The Disadvantaged
Vaping may be helping disadvantaged members of society to quit smoking, according to a new study from University of Glasgow researchers
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by Dave Cross
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The study also found that while disadvantaged adult smokers were less likely to have quit smoking, this inequality was smaller among those who vaped, suggesting vaping may be helping this group of smokers to quit.
The study’s authors believe that vaping has the potential to narrow “narrow socioeconomic inequalities in health in the future.”
It looked at data from almost 40,000 young people and adults in 2015-2017 from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study. They found that among 10 to 15-year-olds who had never smoked, those from disadvantaged households had a higher risk of vaping. However, vaping was rare in this age group in general, with only around 3% of young people using these devices. Among over 18,000 adults (aged 16+) who had ever smoked, those in disadvantaged households were less likely to be ex-smokers, but this difference was smaller among adults who vaped.
The use of e-cigarettes began to rise in the UK from 2011, with approximately 7% of adults using them in this study. While health consequences of long-term vaping are largely unknown, expert opinion regards vaping as substantially less harmful than smoking, and vaping may help smokers to quit.
Dr Michael Green, lead author of the study said: “Whether someone smokes is important because, while vaping among those who have never smoked might be a concern, vaping among smokers and ex-smokers is more desirable because it can involve people switching away from smoking.”
“Inequalities in vaping among young people who have never smoked are something to keep monitoring, but there are good reasons not to be alarmed. Vaping among young people in the UK was still very rare, so any impact would be limited. Furthermore, some of the children using e-cigarettes could be trying them instead of traditional cigarettes, which would likely be much more harmful.”
“Our findings suggest that e-cigarettes may be helping disadvantaged smokers to quit. This could potentially have a big impact on inequalities in health, because giving up smoking is very beneficial for people’s health.”
Related:
- “Socioeconomic patterning of vaping by smoking status among UK adults and youth” by Michael Green, Linsay Gray, Helen Sweeting and Michaela Benzeval – [link]
Photo Credit:
Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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