Vaping among young people: From experimentation to habit

*Disclaimer: Please note that parts of this English sci-fly were automatically translated.*

Vaping is extremely popular among young people. Vaping once may seem harmless, but it can eventually become a new habit. How exactly does that transition occur, and which young people are at greatest risk? Researchers in the United States investigated this. They followed young people over an extended period and asked them questions about their vaping behaviour at various points in time.

CORE

Most important conclusions

• Young people can be divided into three groups based on their vaping behaviour: never-vapers (they’ve never tried it), “experimenters” (they vape occasionally), and experienced vapers (they do it regularly).
• The experimentation phase is particularly crucial: this is the point at which vaping can progress from “occasional trying” to more frequent and intensive use.
• Young people who also use other substances (such as alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis) and believe that vaping poses few risks are more likely to start vaping and are also more likely to move on to more intensive vaping.

Practical implications/recommendations

• Prevention efforts should target different phases of vaping behaviour. Young people who have never vaped or are experimenting with vaping may start vaping or begin vaping more intensively.
• Because vaping is associated with other substance use and risk perception, prevention efforts should focus on 1) broader substance use – not just vaping itself – and 2) raising awareness about the risks of vaping.

RESEARCH METHODS

WHAT? This study examined how vaping behaviour among young people develops over time and which factors appear to explain the transition between different levels of vaping intensity.

WHO? A total of 432 young people aged 12 to 25 from the U.S. participated in the study.

HOW? As part of a larger cohort study, the researchers asked the young people to complete a questionnaire three times over the course of one year; among other things, the questionnaire asked how often they had vaped nicotine, flavourings, cannabis (THC or hashish), and cannabidiol (CBD, no THC).

FINDINGS

• Young people can be divided into three groups based on their vaping behaviour: never-vapers, experimenting vapers, and experienced vapers.
• Within the group of experienced vapers, more than half had vaped nicotine (compared to about 20% among experimenting vapers). It is also notable that all experienced vapers had vaped cannabis more than 20 times, whereas this did not occur at all among the experimenters.
• Young people who are experimenting or are already experienced vapers tend to be older than never-vapers. In addition, they reported anxiety symptoms more frequently and often used other substances in addition to vaping.
• Never-vapers had a higher perception of the risks associated with vaping compared to experimenting and experienced vapers. Young people who viewed vaping as less harmful were more likely to transition experimenting.
• A large proportion of young people remain in the same group for an extended period, but within a year, a portion moved to a different group:
  • Approximately 5% of the never-vapers began experimenting.
  • Approximately 9% of the experimenters became experienced vapers.
  • No direct transition was found from never-vapers to experienced vapers.
• There are a few factors associated with the transition to starting to vape or engaging in more intensive vaping behaviour:
  • Alcohol and tobacco use, combined with a lower perception of risk, increased the likelihood that a never-vaper would occasionally experiment with vaping.
  • Recent cannabis use increased the likelihood that a young person would progress from experimenting with vaping to vaping regularly.

DETAILS

Glasser, A. M., Tomaino, M., Uriarte, C., Carman, C., Roemhildt, M., Williams, R., Chen-Sankey, J., & Villanti, A. C. (2026). Trajectories of lifetime vaping in teens and young adults: Latent transition analyses over one year. BMC Public Health, 26(1), 1626. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-026-27204-8

This sci-fly was written by Sanne van der Heijden (research master student Behavioural Science at Radboud University and junior researcher at IrisZorg) for RAD-blog, the blog about smoking, alcohol, drugs and diet.