E-cigarette awareness, perceived harmfulness, and ever use among U.S. adults

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Tobacco Control
• Epidemiology

Background:

• E-cigarette use presents a growing public health concern.
• Understanding awareness, perceived harm, and usage patterns is crucial for effective interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To update knowledge on e-cigarette awareness, perceived harmfulness, and ever use among U.S. adults.
• To identify risk-factor profiles associated with e-cigarette ever use.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the 2015 Health Information National Trends Survey (N=3738).
• Employed logistic regression to analyze relationships between sociodemographics, other tobacco product use, and e-cigarette outcomes.
• Applied Classification and Regression Tree (CART) modeling to identify risk profiles for e-cigarette ever use.

Main Results:

• High awareness (83.6%) of e-cigarettes was observed, with over half (54.7%) perceiving them as not at all or moderately harmful.
• E-cigarette ever use prevalence was 22.4%.
• Current cigarette smoking and prior use of alternative tobacco products were strong predictors of e-cigarette use, alongside age, race/ethnicity, and education. Fifteen distinct risk profiles emerged, showing use prevalence ranging from 6% to 94%.

Conclusions:

• Findings highlight the need for ongoing monitoring of e-cigarette use patterns.
• Identified risk profiles offer valuable insights for targeted public health strategies and regulatory policy development concerning e-cigarettes.