Spending time with people who use e-cigarettes can encourage cigarette smokers to try to quit, according to research published today.
The study, led by Dr Sarah Jackson of University College London, UK, was carried out over a three and a half year period and included information on almost 13,000 people taking part in the ongoing Smoking Toolkit Study.
Findings showed that 26% of smokers regularly spend time with vapers, and 32% of this group had attempted to quit smoking in the previous year. This is higher than the rate among those who did not regularly spend time with vapers, 27%.
This translates to a 20% higher rate of quitting attempts among those witnessing vaping, explain the authors today (14 November) in BMC Medicine.
Dr Jackson says: “It is becoming increasingly more commonplace for smokers to come into contact with vapers and some concerns have been raised that this could ‘renormalise’ smoking in England and undermine smokers’ motivation to quit.
“Our results found no evidence that spending time with vapers discourages smokers from quitting, which should help to alleviate concerns about the wider public health impact of e-cigarettes.”
But she added that the quitters in this group tended to move on to e-cigarettes rather than give up smoking completely.
Kruti Shrotri, of Cancer Research UK, commented: “So far, there hasn’t been much evidence about whether e-cigarettes might make smoking tobacco seem normal again.
“As the number of people who use e-cigarettes to quit smoking rises, we hope that smokers who come into contact with them are spurred on to give up tobacco for good.”
BMC Medicine 14 November 2018
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