Interactive text messages may help teenagers quit vaping for good, study says

Health & Wellness Vaping

By Bruno Cooke

9 August 2024

Researchers in the US carrying out one of the first studies of its kind have found that tailored, interactive text message programs can significantly increase the likelihood that teens will be able to quit vaping. Despite being the most commonly used tobacco product among adolescents, cessation interventions have barely been tested.

The Focus recently reported on research that shows vaping is two times harder to quit than smoking cigarettes. Bad news for those who switch to e-cigarettes in an attempt to get off nicotine. Now, theres a viable alternative to quitting cold turkey. Or, at least, there might be in the near future.

Electronic Cigarette Retailers Face Legislative Setback — BERLIN, GERMANY – MARCH 01: In this photo illustration the owner of a shop that sells electronic cigarettes demonstrates how to use one on March 1, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. The German government has announced that it classifies the liquids used in electronic cigarettes as pharmaceuticals because the liquids contain nicotine, and that sale of the liquids requires certification. An estimated 1.2 to 2 million people in Germany use electronic cigarettes, and the retailers that sell the liquids now face the problem that they are breaking the law. Electronic cigarettes have thus far been in a legal grey area with some lawmakers pushing for conclusive studies to determine their potential health effects. (Photo Illustration by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Text message program helps teens quit vaping

Researchers designed an automated, tailored, interactive text message program for quitting vaping. They designed it specifically for adolescences, grounding it in academic research into what helps young people cut the habit. To make it extra effective and relatable, they asked people who had already quit vaping to help them design the messages.

They tested the program on about 1,500 young people selected for the study, and the results were very encouraging or, statistically significant, in academic jargon.

The researchers compared rates of successful quitting between those who received the program of messages and those who didnt. After seven months, 28% of those who didnt undertake the program had successfully quit, compared with 37% of participants who did.�

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In their write-up, they add that there was no evidence that the adolescents who quit vaping had moved over to combustible tobacco products, i.e., cigarettes and pipes.�In other words, they’d managed to wean themselves off nicotine, not solely off e-cigarette products.

Adolescents on This Is Quitting program 35% more likely to quit successfully

The difference between 28% and 37% may seem minor, but it amounts to a 35% disparity. 37% is more than a third higher than 28%.

The magnitude of quit rates in this study is noteworthy, the authors write.�

It’s true: if you map the figures onto the vaping population of the US, for example, it corresponds to huge numbers of young people who could benefit from this sort of program.

Using text messages to communicate to people regularly about their journey towards smoking abstinence is scalable and cost-efficient, they add, calling it a broadly accessible intervention.

The program they designed, they say, could be an invaluable resource for clinicians whose interests want to quit vaping.

E-cigarettes and vapes overtook smoking in the data

Vaping has been more popular among US teens than smoking for nearly a decade.

In 2023, more than 2 million adolescents vaped. That was 10% of high school students and nearly 5% of middle school students.

Contrary to what we might like to believe, the authors of the present research insist there is no safe level of e-cigarette use for adolescents.

Putting nicotine in your body as a young person affects learning, memory, and attention and increases the risk for mental health problems and addiction to other drugs later in life.

Possible health risks of vaping as a youngster include exacerbating asthma, bronchitis, and respiratory tract irritation. So, while it may be less unhealthy than smoking cigarettes, vaping is by no means a healthy alternative. With any luck, this interactive text message program will become available, in some form, soon.