{"id":23042,"date":"2025-02-24T10:28:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T10:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=23042"},"modified":"2025-02-24T10:28:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T10:28:54","slug":"no-evidence-vaping-leads-to-smoking-among-youth-review-by-leading-health-experts-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/no-evidence-vaping-leads-to-smoking-among-youth-review-by-leading-health-experts-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"No evidence vaping leads to smoking among youth, review by leading health experts finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"clear-before-content-2\" style=\"margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 20px;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;text-align: center;\" id=\"clear-10242803\"><img src=\"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/caafc5c68900198b80aee12c11b50184.avif\" alt=\"\"   style=\"display: inline-block;\" \/><\/div>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Large scale review of 126 studies refutes \u2018gateway theory\u2019 that vaping leads to smoking<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Evidence suggests opposite could be true, that vaping leads to LESS youth smoking<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Among larger studies, smoking rates decreased as vaping rates increased<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Previous research from same team shows vapes help adults stop smoking<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no clear evidence vaping leads young people onto more harmful smoking, a large scale review by leading health experts has found.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Public health researchers analysed 126 studies, with data from around four million people aged 29 and under across the U.S, Canada and Europe.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/add.16773\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The major review<\/a>, which used respected Cochrane methods, found no significant evidence to support the gateway theory &#8211; that young people who vape are more likely to go on to smoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>As vaping rates increased, smoking rates decreased<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the larger studies reviewed, data indicated that when vaping rates increased among youth, smoking rates tended to decrease. Conversely, when vaping access was restricted, smoking rates appeared to rise.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne of the substantial concerns from some members of the public health community about vaping is that it might cause more young people to smoke,\u201d says Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and senior author of the review.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cSome &#8211; but not all &#8211; evidence from our study possibly suggests the opposite &#8211; that vaping may contribute to declines in youth smoking, particularly in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The review, funded by Cancer Research, looked at the link between vaping and smoking on both an individual level and a population level. While individuals who vaped were found to be marginally more likely to go on to smoke, population-level data indicated vaping was unlikely to be the cause.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hartmann-Boyce suggests that some youth who vape may have otherwise turned to smoking if vaping were not an option.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s enough non-smoking kids who start vaping in the U.S. that if vaping was in a consistent and widespread way causing kids to start smoking, we would start seeing that in our population-level smoking data,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd we haven\u2019t seen that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cigarette smoking has steadily declined<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, cigarette smoking among youth has been steadily declining for years. Recent data from the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/volumes\/73\/wr\/mm7341a2.htm#:~:text=From%202023%20to%202024%2C%20current,from%2010.0%25%20to%207.8%25).\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)<\/a> shows a sharp drop in high school students who reported smoking in the past 30 days &#8211; from 15.8 per cent in 2011 to 4.6 per cent in 2020 and just 1.7 per cent in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tobacco Use among U.S. Middle and High School Students in 2024.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com\/docsz\/AD_4nXeCF1Mq4X3OUGRFkHNg7F2jKz8eRSMpTkhXM9fcMuj0Cs7Wm44_VGMK0_W-Dy0JRO2w4ncqz9mQW0ireh8mc4dsA1w3I3n3rb5Qb-QBO77tRpSt91rjMpWOdttWMaH3f8ZnhwWk?key=nTKeB5MtH1l2vwRSShhTxRNh\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Source: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/tobacco\/php\/data-statistics\/youth-data-tobacco\/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em>CDC<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe smoking rates among kids have declined steeply, and whether or not that\u2019s due to vaping or something else is up in the air,\u201d Hartmann-Boyce says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut it\u2019s difficult to argue that &#8211; in the U.S. population &#8211; youth vaping is en masse causing kids to smoke. The data doesn\u2019t support that so far.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study, led by experts from some of the world\u2019s top universities, emphasises that the findings are \u2018low certainty.\u2019 Unlike controlled experiments, where participants can be randomly assigned to behaviours, researchers cannot ethically assign adolescents to start vaping or smoking.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe studies themselves are not straightforward study designs, because you can\u2019t randomise kids to vape or not vape &#8211; it just wouldn\u2019t be ethical,\u201d Hartmann-Boyce explains.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>He said more research is needed to more clearly ascertain cause and effect.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While most of the large studies reviewed suggest an association between increased vaping rates and declining cigarette smoking rates, other mostly smaller studies show conflicting results. \u201cWe need more studies to establish any causal links,\u201d says Monserrat Conde, lead author from the University of Oxford.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study concluded: \u201cAt a population level, the balance of evidence suggests that overall, youth vaping and smoking are inversely related &#8211; that is, as more young people vape, fewer smoke, and vice versa. However, this could vary by context and was not consistent across all studies.\u201c<br><br><a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC8094228\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Previous research<\/a> from Hartmann-Boyce\u2019s team indicates that nicotine vapes can help adults quit smoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"clear-after-content-2\" style=\"margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 20px;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;text-align: center;\" id=\"clear-170838121\"><img src=\"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/caafc5c68900198b80aee12c11b50184.avif\" alt=\"\"   style=\"display: inline-block;\" \/><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no clear evidence vaping leads young people onto more harmful smoking, a large scale review by leading health experts has found.&nbsp; Public health researchers analysed 126 studies, with data from around four million people aged 29 and under across the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990002,"featured_media":23043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259,257],"tags":[338,186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-23042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-news","tag-canada","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23049,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23042\/revisions\/23049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23042"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=23042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}