Factors Associated With Victorian Adolescents' Harm Perceptions and Attitudes About e-Cigarettes

To explore Australian adolescents' perceptions of the risks and health harms associated with vaping and their attitudes towards e-cigarettes and examine if these vary by demographic and other factors.

Data were from a 2022-2023 cross-sectional, school-based survey of Victorian students aged 12-17 years (n = 1701 [weighted]; n = 1696 [unweighted]). Separate multivariable logistic regression models tested associations between agreement with each perception/attitude and predictors (age group, gender, area-based socio-economic status, vaping susceptibility, e-cigarette marketing exposure, peer vaping), controlling for education sector and school-level clustering.

Most students (≥ 86%) agreed that vaping is harmful and addictive and that e-cigarettes contain harmful substances and nicotine, while agreement that breathing other people's e-cigarette vapour can affect your health was somewhat lower (69%). Perceptions of vaping harms tended to be stronger among females (vs. males) and weaker among past-month vapers (vs. non-susceptible, never-vapers). Overall, students held more negative than favourable attitudes towards e-cigarettes. However, vaping susceptibility, being of younger age and having a close friend that vapes were independently associated with having more favourable attitudes towards e-cigarettes (e.g., they look cool, make vaping look exciting). Further, past-month exposure to e-cigarette advertising was associated with students believing that e-cigarettes look good, make vaping look appealing, encourage them to vape and encourage them to buy an e-cigarette.

Findings provide support for recent government policies to limit e-cigarette advertising and retail access, and the delivery of youth-targeted educational campaigns about vaping. SO WHAT?: Ongoing monitoring is important to assess sustained change over time in e-cigarette knowledge and attitudes among Australian adolescents, with this study providing an important pre-reform baseline against which such changes can be evaluated.