Prevalence and characteristics of EC use in England

This talk will focus on data from Great Britain and put them in an international context. Data from several representative surveys indicate that vaping prevalence among adults in Great Britain has remained stable at 5% to 6% for the last few years and remains concentrated among smokers and ex-smokers with prevalence among never smokers around 0.5%. Just under a third of all current smokers had never tried EC. We also evaluate the impact of EC use on health inequalities, we examine prevalence, reasons and characteristics of EC use by socio-economic background. Experimentation with EC among youth in Great Britain and other countries has steadily increased in recent years. However, regular use (at least weekly) remains low at 2% of 11-18-year olds in 2018 and very low among never smokers (0.4%). The proportion who haven’t smoked but have tried vaping is increasing. Studies from outside of the UK suggest a similar picture with increasing experimentation and use of EC over time among youth but a mixed picture in relation to cigarette smoking.