UMASS Finds Gateway Evidence is Poor
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMASS) have found that evidence supporting the belief that vaping is a gateway to smoking for young people is of very low quality
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by Dave Cross
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Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMASS) have found that evidence supporting the belief that vaping is a gateway to smoking for young people is of very low quality. Senior author Jamie Hartmann-Boyce has spoken about their research which identified the “very low-certainty evidence”.
Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, assistant professor of health policy and management at UMASS and senior author of the new review paper published in the journal Addiction, said: “One of the substantial concerns from some members of the public health community about vaping is that it might cause more young people to smoke. Some — but not all — evidence from our study possibly suggests the opposite — that vaping may contribute to declines in youth smoking, particularly in the U.S.”
Hartmann-Boyce explained that “it’s a very tricky, contentious issue”.
Her team reviewed the findings from 123 studies, covering over 4 million participants under age 29 in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe.
Team member Monserrat Conde explained that the only clear finding from the research is that there is no clear finding, adding “we need more studies to establish any causal links.”
Hartmann-Boyce continued: “The studies themselves are not straightforward study designs, because you can’t randomise kids to vape or not vape — it just wouldn’t be ethical, but it means that there are so many different ways to interpret the findings of these studies.”
“There’s enough non-smoking kids who start vaping in the U.S. that if vaping was in a consistent and widespread way of causing kids to start smoking, we would start seeing that in our population-level smoking data. And we haven’t seen that at all.” - Jamie Hartmann-Boyce
The team found that “on balance” the data showed that as vaping rates went up among young people, smoking rates went down. Conversely, it showed that when vaping was restricted, smoking rates went up.
Hartmann-Boyce went on to point out that although the study found that young people who vape appear to be more likely to go on to smoke at the individual level, “it was unclear whether one caused the other — in other words, whether these young people went on to smoke because they had vaped. It’s possible some of the youth who vape would otherwise have become smokers if they didn’t vape.”
She continued: “There’s enough non-smoking kids who start vaping in the U.S. that if vaping was in a consistent and widespread way of causing kids to start smoking, we would start seeing that in our population-level smoking data, and we haven’t seen that at all.”
Smoking rates among youth have been steadily declining for years, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers from Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Also, teen vaping rates have also been consistently in decline over the last few years.
Hartmann-Boyce concluded: “The smoking rates among kids have declined steeply, and whether or not that’s due to vaping or something else is up in the air, but it’s difficult to argue that — in the U.S. population — youth vaping is en masse causing kids to smoke. The data doesn’t support that so far.”
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Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
