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Flavored e-cigarette advertising may be more appealing to children

Exposure to advertising for flavored e-cigarettes may evoke more interest in e-cigarettes among children compared with adverts for the non-flavored variety, according to recent research.

“Our results point to a need for further examination of the rules surrounding e-cigarette advertising especially in light of the growing popularity of e-cigarettes among children,” Milica Vasiljevic, and colleagues from the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, wrote. “While our study suggests that e-cigarette adverts do not increase the appeal of tobacco smoking, allowing us to be cautiously optimistic that e-cigarette advertising does not directly re-normalize tobacco smoking, our results provide evidence that children find adverts for candy-like flavored e-cigarettes more appealing than adverts for non–candy-like e-cigarettes, potentially serving as a gateway into tobacco smoking.”

Milica Vasiljevic

Vasiljevic and colleagues evaluated the effects of e-cigarette advertising on 598 English schoolchildren aged between 11 years and 16 years, according to the abstract. Tobacco and e-cigarette users were excluded from the final analysis, leaving 471 participants. Researchers stratified participants into one of three groups: exposure to flavored e-cigarette advertising, exposure to non-flavored e-cigarette advertising, or no e-cigarette advertising exposure.

The researchers observed that although there was no significant difference among tobacco smoking appeal, e-cigarette appeal, or tobacco smoking susceptibility between the groups, participants who saw flavored e-cigarette advertising found them more appealing than non-flavored e-cigarette advertising, according to the abstract.

“In addition to the gateway concerns, the heightened appeal of the adverts and interest in buying e-cigarettes in children arising from adverts promoting candy-like flavored e-cigarettes is of concern in and of itself in view of the dangers to the developing brain arising from nicotine exposure and addiction, as well as the unknown long-term physiological effects of using e-cigarettes and secondhand exposure to vaping,” Vasiljevic and colleagues wrote. – by Jeff Craven

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.