A recent study's findings indicate that young people with disabilities and depression are more likely than their peers to become addicted to vaping, adding to the ongoing concerns about the teen vaping pandemic in the US.
American experts caution that in order to effectively combat nicotine addiction among young people in the country, government, school nurses, counsellors, and mental health specialists will probably need to send out more targeted messages alerting them to the health hazards associated with vaping.
Other recent studies have found similar results, showing that individuals with impairments are more likely than those without to vape nicotine, but little is known about the vaping habits of teens and young adults with disabilities.
Researchers from Duke University, George Mason University, and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School analyzed data from the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which contained information from around 25,000 young adults and adolescents (AYA).
They estimated the nationwide prevalence of vaping for nicotine based on major depressive episodes and disability types using those data. The study looked at vaping among people with various kinds of disabilities, such as cognitive, hearing, mobility, and communication impairments.
Overall, 14% of teens with any disability used nicotine vapes, and 14% of teens and young adults with cognitive disabilities used vapes in the past month. Depression is one type of cognitive disability; others include autism spectrum disorder, brain injury, dyslexia, and language delays.
In contrast to 10% of teens and young adults without impairments, 14% of teens and young adults with disabilities reported using nicotine e-cigarettes in the previous month. In all, 14% of adolescents with disabilities of any kind and 14% of adolescents and young adults with cognitive disabilities reported using vapes in the previous month. A few more types of cognitive disabilities are dyslexia, brain damage, autism spectrum disorder, and language difficulties. Depression is one of these.
This is the first study to examine the relationship between depression, disability, and vaping risk among youths and young people between the ages of 12 and 25. The findings revealed trends among teenagers that were comparable to those discovered in adult studies.
According to researchers, one explanation for this could be that individuals with cognitive impairments also have higher rates of severe anxiety and depression in adulthood. Teens with cognitive difficulties follow this same trend.
Recent years have seen a worsening of the teen vaping epidemic, primarily due to the high nicotine delivery rates from devices like JUUL. There was a rise in high school students' e-cigarette use from 2017 to 2018. During that period, use among young adults climbed from 5% to 8%, while among high school kids it increased from 12% to 21%.
However, the percentage of middle and high school students who vape started to decline in 2023, going from 14% in 2022 to 10% in 2023. However, around 3 million teenagers continue to use tobacco products of any kind.
According to research, e-cigarettes are just as harmful to blood flow and the development of cardiovascular disease as regular tobacco cigarettes, and they pose several health problems. Furthermore, vaping has been connected to a higher risk of oral cancer and is thought to harm human DNA.
