{"doi":"10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.4885","title":"Association of Electronic Cigarette Use by US Adolescents With Subsequent Persistent Cigarette Smoking","abstract":"Importance: Many studies have reported a positive association of youth electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use with subsequent cigarette smoking initiation, but it remains unclear whether e-cigarette use is associated with continued cigarette smoking after initiation. Objective: To assess the association of youth baseline e-cigarette use with their continued cigarette smoking 2 years after initiation. Design, Setting, and Participants: The Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study is a national longitudinal cohort study. This sample consisted of youth who participated in waves 3, 4, and 5 of the study (wave 3 was from October 2015 to October 2016, wave 4 was from December 2016 to January 2018, and wave 5 was from December 2018 to November 2019) and had never used cigarettes (cigarette-naive) by wave 3. The current analysis used multivariable logistic regressions in August 2022 to assess the association between e-cigarette use among cigarette-naive adolescents aged 12 to 17 years in 2015 and 2016 and subsequent continued cigarette smoking. PATH uses audio computer-assisted self-interviewing and computer-assisted personal interviewing to collect data. Exposures: Ever and current (past 30-day) use of e-cigarettes in wave 3. Main Outcomes and Measures: Continued cigarette smoking in wave 5 after initiating smoking in wave 4. Results: The current sample included 8671 adolescents who were cigarette naive in wave 3 and also participated in waves 4 and 5; 4823 of the participants (55.4%) were aged 12 to 14 years, 4454 (51.1%) were male, and 3763 (51.0%) were non-Hispanic White. Overall, regardless of e-cigarette use, few adolescents (362 adolescents [4.1%]) initiated cigarette smoking at wave 4, and even fewer (218 participants [2.5%]) continued smoking at wave 5. Controlling for multiple covariates, the adjusted odds ratio of baseline ever e-cigarette use, compared with never e-cigarette use, was 1.81 (95% CI, 1.03 to 3.18) for continued smoking measured as past 30-day smoking at wave 5. However, the adjusted risk difference (aRD) was small and not significant. The aRD was 0.88 percentage point (95% CI, -0.13 to 1.89 percentage points) for continued smoking, with the absolute risk being 1.19% (95% CI, 0.79% to 1.59%) for never e-cigarette users and 2.07% (95% CI, 1.01% to 3.13%) for ever e-cigarette users. Similar results were found using an alternative measure of continued smoking (lifetime ≥100 cigarettes and current smoking at wave 5) and using baseline current e-cigarette use as the exposure measure. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, absolute and relative measures of risks yielded findings suggesting very different interpretations of the association. Although there were statistically significant odds ratios of continued smoking comparing baseline e-cigarette users with nonusers, the minor risk differences between them, along with the small absolute risks, suggest that few adolescents are likely to continue smoking after initiation regardless of baseline e-cigarette use.","journal":"JAMA Network Open","year":2023,"id":324591,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":33,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.962,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":315272,"name":"David Méndez","orcid":"0000-0002-4415-4832","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":315273,"name":"Kenneth E. Warner","orcid":"0000-0002-8214-1776","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":235688,"name":"Ruoyan Sun","orcid":"0000-0001-8412-7727","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":38,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:08:16.809511Z","pmid":"36972048","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}