TY - JOUR T1 - Evidence that an intervention weakens the relationship between adolescent electronic cigarette use and tobacco smoking: a 24-month prospective study JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control DO - 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054905 SP - tobaccocontrol-2018-054905 AU - Mark Conner AU - Sarah Grogan AU - Ruth Simms-Ellis AU - Keira Flett AU - Bianca Sykes-Muskett AU - Lisa Cowap AU - Rebecca Lawton AU - Christopher Armitage AU - David Meads AU - Laetitia Schmitt AU - Carole Torgerson AU - Robert West AU - Kamran Siddiqi Y1 - 2019/06/28 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2019/06/28/tobaccocontrol-2018-054905.abstract N2 - Background The electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use to subsequent smoking relationship in adolescents has received much attention. Whether an intervention to reduce smoking initiation attenuated this relationship was assessed.Method Data were from 3994 adolescent never smokers (aged 13–14 years at baseline) as part of a cluster randomised controlled trial. Self-report measures of smoking, e-cigarette use and covariates were assessed and used to predict ever smoked cigarettes, any recent tobacco smoking and regularly smoked cigarettes at 24-month follow-up.Results Baseline ever use of e-cigarettes was associated with ever smoked cigarettes (OR=4.03, 95% CI 3.33 to 4.88; controlling for covariates, OR=2.78, 95% CI 2.20 to 3.51), any recent tobacco smoking (OR=3.38, 95% CI 2.72 to 4.21; controlling for covariates, OR=2.17, 95% CI 1.76 to 2.69) and regularly smoked cigarettes (OR=3.60, 95% CI 2.35 to 5.51; controlling for covariates, OR=1.27, 95% CI 1.17 to 1.39) at follow-up. For ever smoked cigarettes only, the impact of e-cigarette use was attenuated in the intervention (OR=1.83) compared with control (OR=4.53) condition. For ever smoked cigarettes and any recent tobacco smoking, the impact of e-cigarette use was attenuated among those with friends who smoked (OR=2.05 (ever smoked); 1·53 (any tobacco use)) compared with those without friends who smoked (OR=3.32 (ever smoked); 2·17 (any tobacco use)).Conclusions This is one of the first studies to show that e-cigarette use was robustly associated with measures of smoking over 24 months and the first to show an intervention to attenuate the relationship. Further research with a broader age range of adolescents is required. ER -