Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115.
Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114.
J Sch Health. 2022 Jul;92(7):720-727. doi: 10.1111/josh.13171. Epub 2022 Mar 18.
Despite recent tobacco control efforts, adolescent vaping remains an epidemic in the United States. The purpose of our study was to understand high school student vaping behaviors using the perceptions of Massachusetts school personnel during the critical window from when the Massachusetts statewide flavor ban legislation was passed in November 2019 through the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
High school personnel throughout Massachusetts were invited to complete a cross-sectional survey. Analysis of survey responses was conducted in R.
A total of 162 respondents completed the survey representing 137 schools that draw enrollments from 216 (61%) of the 352 cities and towns in Massachusetts. The most popular products that respondents believed their students were using were JUULs (95.7%), other e-cigarettes (85.3%), and disposable vapes (79.6%). Following the flavor ban, the majority (90.7%) did not report an increase in combusted tobacco product use. All participants (100%) reported wanting more access to prevention and treatment resources.
Our findings suggest that a comprehensive flavor ban may be an effective tobacco control policy that does not appear to promote student switching from vaping products to combusted tobacco products. These data also indicate that schools report needing additional resources to address the vaping epidemic.
尽管最近采取了烟草控制措施，但青少年蒸气吸入仍然是美国的一大流行问题。我们的研究目的是了解高中学生蒸气吸入行为，利用马萨诸塞州全州范围内禁止调味电子烟立法于 2019 年 11 月通过到 COVID-19 大流行第一年这段关键时期内学校人员的看法。
邀请马萨诸塞州各地的高中人员完成一项横断面调查。在 R 中对调查结果进行分析。
共有 162 名受访者完成了调查，代表了来自马萨诸塞州 352 个城镇中的 216 个（61%）的 137 所学校。受访者认为学生最常使用的产品是 JUULs（95.7%）、其他电子烟（85.3%）和一次性电子烟（79.6%）。在禁止调味电子烟后，大多数（90.7%）人没有报告可燃烟草制品使用量增加。所有参与者（100%）表示希望获得更多预防和治疗资源。
我们的研究结果表明，全面的调味电子烟禁令可能是一项有效的烟草控制政策，似乎不会促使学生从蒸气吸入产品转向可燃烟草制品。这些数据还表明，学校报告需要额外的资源来解决蒸气吸入流行问题。
