{"id":24537,"date":"2025-05-21T10:11:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T10:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=24537"},"modified":"2025-05-21T10:11:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T10:11:46","slug":"youth-vaping-panic-in-the-netherlands-sparked-by-misinterpreted-data-from-just-eight-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/youth-vaping-panic-in-the-netherlands-sparked-by-misinterpreted-data-from-just-eight-teens\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth vaping panic in the Netherlands sparked by misinterpreted data from just EIGHT teens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

A widely reported claim that \u2018nearly 40 per cent of Dutch youth aged 12 to 16 are addicted to vaping\u2019 was based on the responses of only eight teenagers, an investigation has revealed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sensational figure originated from a survey by research agency Motivaction for the \u201cNo to Vaping\u201d public health campaign, launched last week by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poll included 760 respondents aged 12 to 16, but the addiction question was answered by just 20 youths who currently vape. Of these, eight stated they felt addicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the small, non-representative sample size, a VWS press release stated that \u201c38 percent of vaping 12- to 16-year-olds in this study\u201d<\/strong> reported feeling addicted.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The press release did not make clear that this percentage referred to only eight individuals. This figure was then reported by Dutch media and, in some cases, misinterpreted or exaggerated as referring to the entire youth population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misleading headlines<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

News agency ANP initially circulated a story stating: \u201cAlmost 40 percent of 12- to 16-year-olds are addicted to vaping.\u201d This led to shocking headlines such as \u201cAlmost 40 percent of 12 to 16 year olds are addicted to vaping. Nicotine is the most addictive drug after heroin and crack\u201d from regional daily newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news also made it onto TV, with presenter Frank van Leeuwen reporting on morning show Goedemorgen Nederland: \u201cThere is a worrying story on the front page of the AD (national newspaper Algemeen Dagblad): \u201cParents must stop their children from vaping. And new figures just now: 40 percent of 12 to 16 year olds say they are addicted to vaping.’ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday evening, Leeuwen\u2019s statement was repeated in a compilation of vape news on talk show Bar Laat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corrections issued<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

ANP corrected its story twice within an hour, eventually clarifying that the figure applied only to 12 to 16-year-olds who vape, not all young people, and included the sample size. However, not all outlets that had picked up the original version updated their reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Motivaction report itself cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from the addiction-related responses. It noted that the addiction question was answered by a small, unrepresentative subset of participants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report explicitly avoided using percentages for this particular data, instead providing only the absolute numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PR agency Hagens, Dutch Ministry of Health and Motivaction later released a statement asserting that while the figure was factually correct within the context of the study, it should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misinterpreted data<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

They acknowledged that some media had misinterpreted the data and said efforts were made to request corrections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANP editor-in-chief Freek Staps admitted fault, noting the initial misreporting stemmed from reliance on the VWS press release. He stated that ANP would attach a bright yellow warning to the story to help editors identify the inaccuracy and prevent it spreading further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The misinformation was uncovered in an investigation by Dutch fact-checking site Nieuwscheckers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalist Peter Burger said: \u201cThere are no figures showing that almost 40 percent of 12- to 16-year-olds are addicted to vaping, or that almost 40 percent of vaping youth in that age group think they are addicted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe alarming headlines with these figures are based on unrepresentative research results: on the answers of eight out of twenty vaping youth surveyed<\/em> who said yes to the question of whether they thought they were addicted in a Motivaction survey. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that the unfounded and exaggerated figure of ‘almost forty percent of 12-16 year olds addicted to vaping’ still made the news is due to an error in the VWS press release, a mistake by an ANP editor and, above all, because journalists did not read the research.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A widely reported claim that \u2018nearly 40 per cent of Dutch youth aged 12 to 16 are addicted to vaping\u2019 was based on the responses of only eight teenagers, an investigation has revealed. The sensational figure originated from a survey by research…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990005,"featured_media":24538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[340,25,186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-24537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-netherlands","tag-news","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24537","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\/990005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24544,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24537\/revisions\/24544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24537"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=24537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}