A study released today by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that more than 2 million U.S. middle and high school students reported currently using e-cigarettes in 2021, with more than 8 in 10 of those youth using flavored e-cigarettes.
The report, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, was based on data from the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), a cross-sectional, self-administered survey of U.S. middle (grades 6–8) and high (grades 9–12) school students. The study assessed current (used on one or more of the past 30 days) e-cigarette use; frequency of use; and use by device type, flavors and usual brand.
Administered Jan. 18–May 21, 2021, this NYTS was the first to be fully conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Data were collected using an online survey to allow eligible students to participate in the classroom, at home or in some other place to account for various school settings during this time. Prior to the pandemic, the survey was conducted in-person inside the school classroom. Because of the changes in the way the survey was conducted this year, results of the 2021 NYTS cannot be compared to findings from previous surveys.
“These data highlight the fact that flavored e-cigarettes are still extremely popular with kids. And we are equally disturbed by the quarter of high school students who use e-cigarettes and say they vape every single day,” said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “The FDA continues to take action against those who sell or target e-cigarettes and e-liquids to kids, as seen just this year by the denial of more than one million premarket applications for flavored electronic nicotine-delivery system products. It is critical that these products come off the market and out of the hands of our nation’s youth.”