Translations:ENDS Youth & Young Adults/5/en

• Use of e-cigarettes increased dramatically, use of cigarettes declined, and use of combustible (non-cigarette) and smokeless tobacco was relatively stable. Whether the overall increase in product use has been mirrored by an increase in nicotine dependence was unclear.
• We found that different tobacco products were associated with differing levels of nicotine dependence, with cigarettes characterised by highest dependence and e-cigarettes in otherwise tobacco-naïve students by low dependence.

• The increase in population use of tobacco products between 2012 and 2019 (from 23.2% to 31.2%) was not accompanied by an equivalent increase in overall population burden of dependence (craving: 10.9% to 9.5%; wanting to use within 30min: 4.7% to 5.4%).
• Among US high school students, increases in the prevalence of nicotine product use from 2012 to 2019 do not appear to have been accompanied by a similar increase in the population burden of nicotine dependence. This may be at least partly attributable to a shift in the most common product of choice from cigarettes (on which users are most dependent) to e‐cigarettes (on which users are least dependent).
• PDF version behind a paywall
• Citation: Jackson, S. E., Brown, J., and Jarvis, M. J. (2021) Dependence on nicotine in US high school students in the context of changing patterns of tobacco product use. Addiction, https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15403.