The study analyzed data from two cycles of the California Student Tobacco Survey, a large, population-representative biennial survey of students in grades 8, 10 and 12. The 2017–18 cycle, which included more than 117,000 students, was conducted before national anti-vaping campaigns had launched; the 2019–20 cycle, with more than 143,000 students, was conducted after the campaigns had been running for over a year and during peak EVALI news coverage. Researchers compared quit attempts and quitting intentions among current vapers, and susceptibility to future vaping among students who had never vaped, across the two periods.
The differences were striking. Among current vapers, the proportion who had attempted to quit in the past year nearly doubled, rising from 28.8% in 2017–18 to 53.2% in 2019–20. Intentions to quit also climbed sharply, from 56.9% to 79.1%. Among teens who had never vaped, susceptibility to trying vaping in the future dropped from 30.3% to 25.7%. The research confirmed that both anti-vaping advertising exposure and EVALI awareness independently predicted higher odds of quit attempts and quitting intentions, even after controlling for demographics and other tobacco-related behaviors.
EVALI awareness was significantly associated with lower susceptibility to future vaping among never-vapers — an effect not found with anti-vaping advertising. This is remarkable because the two major national ad campaigns had combined annual expenditures exceeding $100 million, while EVALI awareness emerged primarily through news coverage generated at no direct advertising cost.