THURSDAY, Oct. 3, 2019 (HealthDay News) — From 2014 to 2018, there was a decrease in current use of one or more flavored tobacco products among youth, according to research published in the Oct. 4 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Karen A. Cullen, Ph.D., from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland, and colleagues analyzed data from the 2014 to 2018 National Youth Tobacco Surveys to determine the prevalence of current (past 30-day) use of flavored tobacco products among U.S. middle school (sixth to eighth grades) and high school (ninth to 12th grade) students.
The researchers found that compared with 3.26 million (70.0 percent) youth tobacco product users in 2014, an estimated 3.15 million (64.1 percent) currently used one or more flavored tobacco products in 2018. Despite this decrease, there was an increase in current use of flavored electronic cigarettes among high school students during 2014 to 2018. Following a decrease during 2014 to 2015, there was an increase in current use of flavored e-cigarettes among middle school students during 2015 to 2018. Current use of flavored hookah tobacco decreased during 2014 to 2018 among middle and high school students; among high school students, there was also a decrease in current use of flavored smokeless tobacco, cigars, pipe tobacco, and menthol cigarettes.
“Continued evaluation of the impact of flavored tobacco product policies on tobacco-related behaviors is important, particularly among youths,” the authors write.
Copyright © 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
