Article Text
Abstract
Objectives An increasing number of US states have required a tax on electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) in the past few years. This study evaluated the effect of statewide vaping product excise tax policy on ENDS use among young adults.
Methods We used the two recent waves (2014–2019) of the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. A total of 17 896 US young adults were analysed. Difference-in-differences approach along with weighted multilevel logistic regressions was used to evaluate the association of vaping product excise tax policy adoption with current ENDS use, accounting for the clustering of respondents within the same states.
Results There was an increase in current ENDS use prevalence from 2014–2015 (3.4%) to 2018–2019 (5.4%). Respondents living in states with vaping product excise tax policy showed significantly lower increase in ENDS use prevalence during the study period (interaction between within-state changes and between-state differences: adjusted OR (AOR)=0.57, 95% CI=0.35 to 0.91), controlling for other state-level policies and sociodemographic characteristics. Additional stratified analysis with state-fixed effects by vaping product excise tax policy implementation status showed consistent findings.
Conclusions Our findings suggest that adopting a vaping product excise tax policy may help reduce ENDS use and suppress the increase of ENDS use prevalence among young adults. Considering that there are still a number of US states that have not implemented vaping product excise tax policy, wider adoption of such policy across the nation would likely help mitigate ENDS use prevalence.
- taxation
- electronic nicotine delivery devices
- public policy
Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data of the TUS-CPS are publicly available at https://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/tcrb/tus-cps/questionnaires-data.
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Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data of the TUS-CPS are publicly available at https://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/tcrb/tus-cps/questionnaires-data.
Footnotes
Correction notice This article has been corrected since it was published online first. Reader feedback post-publication identified areas of inaccuracy and confusion. The editors and the authors have reviewed the article and the associated references. Issues spotted by readers, together with others identified by the editors, have been amended. We thank readers for bringing this to our attention and the authors for their cooperation.
Contributors D-HH conducted literature review, conceptualised the paper, performed statistical analyses and drafted the manuscript. H-CL coordinated the study, acquired the data, conceptualised the paper and provided critical revision of the manuscript. D-CS provided critical revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.