Survey finds 10% of S Korean children heard of e-cigs, .5% claimed past usage

[Bill Godshall]

Please note that this study was written by e-cigarette opponents, that the youth were only asked if they had "ever tried using" an e-cigarette, and the tiny percentage of youth who claimed to have used an e-cigarette in this survey may be due to false claims (as other youth drug surveys have found that a similar percentage of youth falsely claimed to have used drugs that don't even exist).

http://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(11)00273-4/abstract

Electronic-Cigarette Smoking Experience Among Adolescents
Journal of Adolescent Health
Volume 49, Issue 5 , Pages 542-546, November 2011
Jun Ho Cho, Ph.D., M.P.H., Eunyoung Shin, Ph.D., M.P.H., Sang-Sik Moon, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Abstract

Objectives

To investigate the level of awareness and contact routes to electronic cigarette (e-cigarette), and to identify significant factors that may affect adolescent use of e-cigarettes; this study explores the experience of e-cigarettes among adolescents.
Methods

Using the data from the 2008 Health Promotion Fund Project in Korea, we used a hierarchical logistic regression analysis to evaluate gender, level of school, family smoking, perception of peer influence, satisfaction in school life, and cigarette smoking experience as predictors of trying e-cigarettes among adolescents in five schools in Korea.
Results

Overall, 444 (10.2%) students responded as having seen or heard of e-cigarettes. Twenty-two (.5%) students reported as having used an e-cigarette. The contact routes of information on e-cigarettes were the Internet (249, 46.4%), friends (150, 27.9%), television (59, 11.0%), books (50, 9.3%), and others (29, 5.4%). The following factors were determined to be statistically significant predictors of e-cigarette experience: male gender, perception of peer influence, satisfaction in school life, and cigarette smoking experience.
Conclusions

In light of this fact, continuous attention needs to be paid on the marketing of e-cigarettes on Internet sites to prevent adolescents from being exposed to unsupported claims about e-cigarettes and to provide appropriate information on health effects.

 

[Uma]

God help us if the children quit smoking cigarettes via a safer alternative.
How can they smugly say such things when traditional cigs are advertised and sold on every street corner. Even the ice cream man sells cigs by the one-sies.

These people should be .... oops, my horns are growing

 

[Uma]

a video reminder: Indonesian baby on 40 cigarettes a day - YouTube

Thousands of kids addicted: (in 2009 and STILL need to quit and stay quit. Aldi still craves them and is still being offered them by vendors on the street).

 

[Ande]

Ah, Korea.

Notice this was a study of "adolescents." (I know, everyone under the age of majority can be called a "child." But I don't care for the title of this thread- it gives the image of small children using ecigs, which is NOT what this study investigated or found.)

I've spent some time in Korean high schools- in the public schools, smoking among students is much more prevalent than in the US. It sort of sounds to me like male cigarette smoking Korean teens may have, in small numbers, tried ecigs.

I'm not surprised, or disturbed, by this finding.

Ande

 

[throatkick]

Yes and probably 90% have seen/know of cigarettes and alcohol. Propaganda stops at nothing.

 

[Ande]

Another thought- I'd probably prefer that my daughter (the only child I have) not use tobacco products when she's older.

But, given how many teenagers smoke around here, I would sure rather have her try out an ecig than a real cig.

Thats the thing about harm reduction- if lower risk products are available, it is very possible that a few people start on them rather than starting on cigarettes.

Not a problem.

Ande

 

[rothenbj]

Ande, that is an important thought and demonstrates how we in the US don't understand other world cultures. The last thing I'd be passing in places like Korea is bans on e cigs when smoking is so prevalent. However, that doesn't fit into the TC thought process. It's better to do a study in Korea that can be used as ammunition in the US.

 

[MattZuke]

Twenty-two (.5%) students reported as having used an e-cigarette.

Golly, that's a lower percent of kids who experiment with NRPs.

Go e-cigs!