Yale Center for the Study of Tobacco Product Use and Addiction: Flavors, Nicotine and Other Constituents
Principal Investigator: Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin
Funding Mechanism: National Institutes of Health – Grant
ID number: 3U54DA036151-08S2
Award Date: 8/19/2020
Institution: Yale University
To reduce the risk of e-cigarette/vaping acute lung injury (EVALI), several states have banned flavored e-cigarette sales and one temporarily banned all vaping product sales. In this CTP supplement to a parent grant (Yale Center for the Study of Tobacco Product Use and Addiction), researchers will use new data from e-cigarette/vaping acute lung injury (EVALI) case reports by state and by month to estimate how smoking and vaping rates shifted in response to these policies as well as to the EVALI outbreak itself. Study aims are: (1) to clarify how state variation in behaviors and policies may have contributed to EVALI’s geographic distribution; (2) to quantify changes in vaping and smoking rates in response to the EVALI outbreak; and (3) to estimate how states’ policy responses to EVALI affected vaping and smoking. To address Aim 1, researchers will conduct analyses to characterize states’ 2019 EVALI prevalence by their pre-outbreak rates of vaping and marijuana use as well as marijuana legalization policies. To address Aim 2, researchers will analyze how adults’ smoking and vaping behavior shifted following changes in their state’s reported EVALI prevalence. To address Aim 3, researchers will estimate how banning flavored e-cigarette sales and all vaping product sales affected smoking and vaping rates (before and after policy implementation and compared to states that did not adopt policies). Study findings may inform state regulatory activities related to e-cigarettes.