What Do The “Insights” Tell Us?

The Behavioural Insights Team began as a ‘nudge unit’ operating within the UK government but has become “a global social purpose company of over 200 professionals” owned by charity Nesta – itself originally funded by a £250 million endowment from the UK National Lottery.

The Behavioural Insights Team says: “We create and apply behavioural insights to drive positive change and help people, communities and organisations thrive. We do this by developing better systems, policies, products and services. We apply an evidence-based understanding of human behaviour and find out what works, for whom, and when.”

Like many organisations, it was disappointed that the last Tobacco and Vapes Bill did not progress to the statute book as it was in favour of banning the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 1 January 2009.

That said, it was more cautionary about the Bill’s vaping aspects.

In 2023, The Behavioural Insights Team declared that vaping isn’t a gateway product: “If vaping was a substantial ‘gateway drug’ to cigarettes (as some have argued), then as youth vaping rates rise we would expect to see a corresponding rise in smoking rates. While many readers may know individual children who have taken up smoking after vaping, this story doesn’t seem to play out at the population level. Despite the rise in vaping rates over the last decade there has been no corresponding increase in smoking among 11-17 yr olds, and smoking rates have plummeted among 18-24 yr olds (i.e. the population that young vapers become).”

Following that, the Team investigated what effect publicity about new vaping restrictions might have on the public’s perception of the relative harms of e-cigarettes. They surveyed 5,899 adults and showed them different news clippings, then asked the adults to rate how dangerous they thought vaping was.

1. They found misperceptions are widespread.

“Just under 3 in 4 people in our control group thought that vapes were as harmful or more harmful than cigarettes, and this same proportion was found when we only looked at current smokers. Given that the best available evidence suggests that vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking, it appears that misperceptions are still widespread within the UK.”

1. They also found that current misperceptions could put off smokers from switching.

“We found that harm perceptions were associated with participants’ vaping status. Across our entire sample, current smokers who had never vaped were 2.5 times more likely to say that vaping was equally or more harmful than smoking compared to former smokers who currently vape (80% vs. 32%). On the basis of our findings we can’t say for sure that harm perceptions predict whether a smoker subsequently switches to e-cigarettes (as their perceptions might simply change as a result of their behaviour), but there is some wider longitudinal evidence that suggests harm perceptions do predict subsequent vaping and smoking behaviour.”

1. The Behavioural Insights Team say that positive stories can improve perceptions.

“Those who saw a story about the Government’s new swap to stop programme – which explained that 1 million current smokers will be provided with free e-cigarette starter kits to help them quit smoking – were significantly (p < 0.001) more likely to say that vaping was less harmful than smoking compared to our control group. This effect was consistent when we just looked at current smokers too.”

1. They said that negative stories surprisingly didn’t exacerbate misperceptions.

“We are not sure why this was the case, but these stories may have been more familiar to the public and therefore already factored into their harm perceptions.”

Ultimately, the Behavioural Insights Team believes the government has to be careful that work to prevent youth vaping does not undermine efforts to encourage smokers to quit, “particularly as there are widespread and growing misperceptions about the relative harms of vaping compared to e-cigarettes.”

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave 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.