Adolescent health brief
Use of Conventional and Alternative Tobacco and Nicotine Products Among a Sample of Canadian Youth

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of conventional and alternative tobacco and nicotine products among secondary school students.

Methods

Respondents were 44,163 grade 9–12 students who participated in Year 2 (2013–2014) of COMPASS, a cohort study of 89 purposefully sampled secondary schools in Ontario and Alberta, Canada. Past-month use of various tobacco and nicotine products was assessed, as well as correlates of use, using a generalized linear mixed effects model.

Results

Overall, 21.2% of the sample reported past-month use of any tobacco or nicotine product, with 7.2% reporting past-month use of e-cigarettes. E-cigarette users reported significantly greater prevalence of current use for all products. Students who were male, white, had more spending money, and had a history of tobacco use were more likely to report past-month use of e-cigarettes.

Conclusions

Approximately one fifth of youth reported past-month use of a nicotine product, with e-cigarettes being the third most common product. Overall, the findings suggest a rapidly evolving nicotine market.

Section snippets

Methods

COMPASS is a cohort study designed to collect longitudinal data from a sample of grade 9–12 secondary school students in Ontario and Alberta, Canada. The present article reports findings from Year 2 (2013–2014; the first time e-cigarette use was assessed), conducted in 89 secondary schools (79 in Ontario; 10 in Alberta). A full description of the design and methods of the COMPASS study is published elsewhere [6] and available online at www.compass.uwaterloo.ca. After removing respondents with

Results

Overall, 7.2% of the sample (n = 3,166) reported having used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days. Table 1 shows the characteristics of the sample, as well as the percentage within each demographic group that had used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days. Results of the generalized linear mixed model, which indicated that all covariates were significantly associated with e-cigarette use, are also shown in Table 1.

Table 2 presents the percentage of past 30-day use of tobacco and alternative

Discussion

This study provides novel evidence regarding use of e-cigarettes among a large sample of Canadian youth. Approximately 7% of youth reported currently using e-cigarettes, higher than the recent U.S. estimate of 4.5% among high school students [7]. Although the current findings are not necessarily reflective of all Canadian youth, this difference is noteworthy given the greater degree of regulation on advertising, marketing, import, and sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes in Canada [5].

References (10)

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Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no competing interests to declare. The COMPASS study was supported by a bridge grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes through the “Obesity—Interventions to Prevent or Treat” priority funding awards (OOP-110788; grant awarded to S.T.L.) and an operating grant from the CIHR Institute of Population and Public Health (MOP-114875; grant awarded to S.T.L.). Additional support was provided by CIHR Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (C.D.C.), a CIHR New Investigator Award (D.H.), CIHR Public Health Agency of Canada Chairs in Applied Public Health (D.H., S.T.L.), and the CIHR Training Grant in Population Intervention for Chronic Disease Prevention: A Pan-Canadian Program (Grant 53893; A.G.C.).

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