Vaping - understanding prevalence and trends among adults and children: research

Introduction

This document reports our understanding of current prevalence and trends in vaping based on the analysis of data from twelve surveys conducted at UK or regional level.

It is important to note at the outset that there are some challenges to interpreting the data mostly due to:

• the way in which questions on vaping are formulated (in some cases asking participants whether they have ever used e-cigarettes or used them in the past 30 days, with no exploration of frequency to establish more precise prevalence);
• variations in sample size and research methodology during the Covid-19 pandemic;
• variations in cohorts, sample size and time periods between surveys which complicate data comparison.

Information on the surveys, including the characteristics of each and key data available, are presented in the Appendix.