Since there are anti-vape advocates that believe that vaping is a gateway to smoking which contributes to furthering vape bans worldwide, the authors of this study’s findings are hoping to squash these so-called claims due to lack of evidence. The study, which was carried out at the renowned King’s College London, is the seventh independent report on vaping in England. Continue reading to find out more.
The study
Published by the scientific journal Addiction, the study titled, “Smoking Intention and Progression From E-Cigarette Use To Cigarette Smoking” has revealed that the increase in vaping rates in England among young adults between 2007 and 2018 did not correlate with increased smoking rates.
The study aimed to measure the gateway effect by looking at the association between e-cig use and prevalence in the uptake of smoking, including people who never smoked. That said, if the gateway effect did exist, there should have been associated population-wide changes in the prevalence of smoking uptake that are parallel with vaping rates. However, the authors of the study found no statistical significance in this association and are pushing for the removal of vape bans that have been implemented due to the gateway effect.
What were the results?
There were three waves of data analyzed from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, a US nationally representative prospective cohort study of tobacco use. Waves two (data collected in 2014-2015) and three (data collected in 2015 and 2016) were analyzed in 2019 as part of the study.
Both smoking intention and ever using e-cigs versus combustible cigarettes were the basis of the study. Among those who had expressed the intention to smoke conventional cigarettes at wave two, the odds of cigarette smoking at wave three did not significantly differ for e-cig users and never e-cig users. Moreover, those who had no intention to smoke at wave two, e-cig users, compared with never e-cig users, had less than four times the odds of cigarette smoking.
Lead study author Dr. Emma Beard said, “These findings suggest that the large gateway effects reported in previous studies can be ruled out… at the same time, approximately 50 thousand smokers are estimated to quit per year as a consequence of e-cigarette use.”
Beard pointed out that rather than vaping acting as a gateway to smoking, a more plausible explanation is personality factors.
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