Science & Technology, Canada (Commonwealth Union) – Smoking and vaping among school children is a complex issue that can be influenced by a variety of factors, including peer pressure, family environment, social and cultural norms, advertising, and the desire to experiment with adult behaviors. Understanding these factors has played a role in developing effective strategies to prevent smoking among school children.
Peer pressure is one of the most common reasons why school children start smoking or vaping. Children may feel pressure to fit in with their peers or to be seen as cool or rebellious. They may also feel pressured to try these practices, because their friends are doing it or because they are curious about the effects of smoking. A rebellious nature among certain students can also lead to students taking up smoking or vaping for the sole reason that they are not supposed to do it.
A disturbing trend has been observed among Canadian high school students where a large number of students (roughly 26%) reported vaping in the prior month. This was according to a study conducted by Jamie Seabrook of Brescia University College together with Evan R. Wiley of Western University.
It had been noticed in the study that 12% of high school students said they had exclusively smoked vapes that consisted of nicotine in the prior month, while 11.3% had stated that they used both nicotine and nicotine-free vapes along with a lesser number of 2.5% stated that they were exclusively consuming nicotine-free vapes.
“Vapes were initially marketed as a potential solution to tobacco smoking with claims that they could be a less harmful alternative. While we are still trying to fully grasp the long-term effects of vaping on physical and mental health, our study shows vapes are exposing youth to nicotine and putting them at risk of nicotine addiction,” explained Seabrook, the chair of the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at Brescia University College.
Over a quarter of high school students in Canada had indicated using a vape, and 12% had exclusively smoked vapes consisting of nicotine.
“Youth who vape nicotine-free products tend to have a worse understanding of the risks of e-cigarette chemicals, which can translate to uninformed use and they may conclude that dangers of cigarette smoking are also exaggerated,” added Seabrook.
The findings, were associated with a Canadian survey of 38,299 students in grades 9-12. Researchers had evaluated the ubiquity of the prior month of nicotine vaping, nicotine-free vaping and dual-use vaping that is linked to sociodemographic and health-related variations among high school students.
Seabrook further indicated that vape usage was evaluated on prior occasions, however they wanted to gain further knowledge to find out what exactly the youth are vaping and how that is related to age, gender and the utilization of other substances such as alcohol, tobacco and cannabis.
“Previous research tended to focus on vape use as a unitary behaviour, despite the fact that some individuals vape with nicotine and others with nicotine-free products. Exploring potential differences between these groups can give policy-makers a better chance at implementing more targeted interventions,” explained Wiley, who is a data analyst at the Program of Experimental Medicine (POEM) from the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University.
Researchers demonstrated that male high school students had an increased chance of finding themselves in each category of the prior month of vape users than females. Substance use was further associated to increased odds of students vaping with and without nicotine.
Researchers also observed that grade 10 and 11 students had a greater chance than grade 9 students for vaping with nicotine alone, while grade 9 students had a greater chance than grade 11 and 12 students to vape with both nicotine together with nicotine-free vapes.
