Mitigating the Youth Vaping Epidemic through Increasing Screening Rates for Youth Vaping/E-Cigarette Use in...

E-cigarette/vaping use in adolescents has increased 77.8% among high schoolers and 48.5% among middle schoolers in 2017-2018. As such, there is need for an effective workflow for screening for vaping. We aimed to increase screening rates of e-cigarette/vaping users from less than 1% to at least 50% in 6 months.

Screening for vaping in youth was implemented in a pediatric clinic in Northern California beginning in the summer of 2019 for 6 months. Depending on comorbidity, severity, and readiness to quit, patients were referred to treatment. Outcomes included screening rates, process measure included positive screening rates, and balancing measure was provider time.

The clinic completed 1414 physicals with an average screening rate of 76% and a positive rate of 7.9%. The average age of patients was 15 (standard deviation = 1.3), 48% were female and 29% were Asian/Pacific Islander, 23% Hispanic, and 23% White. After 6 months, we met our goal in all but 1 plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle.

We created a standardized workflow that identified teens who vaped. When compared to other studies, the positive rate for this study was low which is likely due to misinterpretation by staff of screening questions as well as the fact that data were collected during a clinic visit.

It is important to find ways in which providers can mitigate this epidemic given the alarming increase in e-cigarette/vaping use among adolescents. This study furthers the effort to develop a screening method that is simple and brief, allowing physicians to intervene if necessary.