E-Cigarette Use Among Never-Smoking California Students

Abstract

We determined the extent to which adolescents who have never used tobacco try e-cigarettes. Data on the prevalence and correlates of e-cigarette use among 482,179 California middle and high school students are from the 2013-2014 California Healthy Kids Survey. Overall, 24.4% had ever used e-cigarettes (13.4% have never used tobacco and 11.0% have used tobacco), and 12.9% were current e-cigarette users (5.9% have never used tobacco). Among those who have never used tobacco, males and older students were more likely to use e-cigarettes than females and younger students. Hispanics (odds ratio [OR] = 1.60; confidence interval [CI] = 1.53, 1.67) and those of other races (OR = 1.24; CI = 1.19, 1.29) were more likely than Whites to have ever used e-cigarettes, but only among those who had never used smokeless tobacco and never smoked a whole cigarette. E-cigarette use is very prevalent among California students who have never smoked tobacco, especially among Hispanic and other race students, males, and older students.

FIGURE 1—

Correlates of e-cigarette use among tobacco users and nonusers by (a) ever use and (b) current use: California Healthy Kids Survey, 2013–2014. Note. Separate logistic regressions for tobacco users and nonusers predicting e-cigarette ever use (vs never used) and current use (vs no past 30-day use). Bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. All differences between odds ratios for tobacco users and nonusers are statistically significant at α = .001 unless otherwise noted (2-tailed test).