Samantha Odo’s 18-year-old son has tried a range of strategies to quit vaping but she says the process of finding what works to curb his nicotine addiction “hasn’t been easy”.
“The cravings, the habit – it’s tough,” Odo says. “He’s found that keeping busy, especially with activities he enjoys, helps distract him from the urge to vape. It’s also been crucial for him to surround himself with friends who support his decision. Peer influence is no joke, and having a strong support system makes a world of difference.”
Odo says her son is also motivated to quit by health concerns about vaping, plus his desire to save money so that he can afford a car.
“I’m there for him every step of the way, offering encouragement and being a sounding board when he needs it,” she says. “It’s a learning process for both of us, navigating this together.”
Like many caregivers, Odo and her son are trying to find the strategies that are most effective to treat nicotine addiction and then stay away from the habit.
Researchers hope they will soon be able to provide them with some clearer advice.
The Australian government’s primary health and medical research funding agency, the National Health and Medical Research Council, has allocated $2.2m towards developing evidence-based resources to prevent vaping and e-cigarette use; to monitor youth who vape and understand what products they use and what prompts them to stop; and to understand the impact of pro-vaping content on social media.
Dr Emily Stockings, the program lead of the smoking, vaping and mental health program at the University of Sydney’s Matilda Centre, has been awarded $1.5m to work with young people to design resources to prevent and reduce vaping.
“We have been working with a cohort of almost 20,000 young people ranging in the ages of 11 through to their early 20s, and with this funding we plan to ask those young people about vaping in a much more frequent manner to monitor rapid changes in vaping habits,” Stockings says.
“This will help us to better understand new products coming on to the market, where young people are accessing their vapes from, and whether cigarettes are replacing vaping.”
Stockings says there is concern that as federal government reforms aimed at curbing youth vaping are rolled out, those addicted to nicotine may turn to cigarettes if they are easier to source.
“There is evidence to support that if you vape, you have a three times higher likelihood of also smoking,” she says.
By better understanding the vaping habits of young people and their motivations for doing it, Stockings says researchers can work with them to develop effective resources to help youth resist vaping.
“We want to work with them to develop skills and resources that empower them to be able to say, ‘No, vaping is not something I’m interested in.’ We are specifically targeting at-risk groups like young kids who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and kids in rural, remote, low [socioeconomic status] areas.”
Along with peer influence, social media influencers are significant when it comes to encouraging youth vaping, Dr Carmen Chia Wern Lim, a youth substance use researcher from the University of Queensland, says.
Lim has been awarded $660,000 by the National Health and Medical Research Council to research how pro-vaping content on social media influences attitudes of young people towards vaping, so she can then develop interventions to protect youth from this influence.
“This content is really concerning, because recent studies show that many people are actually very persuaded by user-generated content,” she said.
“The first step will be to get people into the lab to see what they are being exposed to, the type of content. And then the second part is to conduct focus groups with people to understand what could be deterring them from vaping.”
A study led by the University of Sydney and Cancer Council of NSW Daffodil Centre, published on Wednesday, found teenagers regard vaping as being safer and less harmful than parents do and that the risk of vaping uptake among teenagers significantly increases if a parent has ever smoked or vaped.
Lim says it is important to understand the range of factors that influence youth vaping, including store locations and accessibility.
But she says efforts to combat youth vaping and its harmful health effects are being particularly hindered by prolific pro-vaping content on social media.
“These posts receive billions of views and most of them are not subject to any age restrictions,” she says.
