Sarah Jackson

In a letter published today in the BMJ, we call for urgent action to correct misperceptions of vaping.

As long as public perceptions of vaping are misaligned with evidence, the opportunity for vaping to further reduce smoking is being missed.

www.bmj.com/content/391/... @ashorguk.bsky.social

SRNT Europe's 2025 conference kicks off two weeks today and I'm delighted to be presenting alongside most of my colleagues from UCL's Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group.

You can catch us across the three days at the following times. Hope to see lots of you there!

#SRNTE2025

Associations between non-daily smoking and motivation to stop smoking: A population study in England 2021–2024 buff.ly/GigcYWP @drsarahejackson.bsky.social @jamiebrown.bsky.social @lionshahab.bsky.social @sharoncox.bsky.social

Associations between non‐daily smoking and motivation to stop smoking: A population study in England 2021–2024 Background and aims An increasing proportion of adults in England who smoke cigarettes do not smoke every day and may see quitting smoking as less important than those who smoke daily. This study ai...

New in @addictionjournal.bsky.social , we find adults who smoke cigarettes non-daily tend to be more motivated to quit smoking than those who smoke every day, especially among older and less advantaged people.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The SRNT-E 2025 conference programme is now online! 🎉

See what we've got lined up here: srnt-e.org/conference/2...

Looking forward to seeing many of you in Romania!

The UK Government uses the Annual Population Survey (APS) as its official smoking estimate.

APS only captures cigarette smoking and may miss some non-daily use. Our findings suggest that relying solely on APS data could overstate reductions in smoking.

The Smoking Toolkit Study shows substantial declines in smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption among adults in England since 2007.

However, the extent of these changes differs according to how the outcomes are defined.

Research letter - Tobacco Control
tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/earl...

Although smoking prevalence is now similar across regions of GB, there is variation in cigarette consumption among adults who smoke.

Mean cigarettes smoked/day and % smoking >20/day:
🟡Highest in North East and Scotland
🟡Lowest in London and South West

academic.oup.com/ntr/advance-...

Our new paper provides up-to-date evidence on cigarette consumption across Great Britain.

🟡~28.6 billion cigarettes are smoked each year.

🟡There are persistent disparities across socioeconomic groups, regions, and nations.

academic.oup.com/ntr/advance-... @ntrjournal.bsky.social

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 2: So ... what is a decision? Unlocking Behaviour Change · Episode

Enjoying listening to this on my commute… and adding ‘profsplaining’ to my vocabulary!

open.spotify.com/episode/5L7P... @robertjwest.bsky.social

Changing patterns of nicotine product use and nicotine dependence among United States high-school students: The National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2014–2023 buff.ly/XL93VOm @drsarahejackson.bsky.social @jamiebrown.bsky.social @tattanbirch.bsky.social

Worth a read. We need to move beyond arbitrary categorisation of continuous variables or assuming that associations are linear - and use more flexible modelling approaches to capture non-linear relationships.

www.bmj.com/content/390/...

To reduce smoking harms, there is an urgent need to correct misperceptions about the risks of vaping

New commentary with @hazelcheeseman.bsky.social, @jamiebrown.bsky.social, and @katieeast.bsky.social

To reduce smoking harms, there is an urgent need to correct misperceptions about the risks of vaping.

www.bmj.com/content/388/...

Likewise, the spike in e-cig use did not lead to a sustained increase in the population burden of nicotine dependence, which is now at a historically low level.

However, dependence symptoms increased over time among those only using e-cigs.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Our results show no evidence of a gateway effect from vaping to smoking at the population level: despite a sharp rise in e-cigarette use in 2019, use of cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products continued to fall and in 2023 were lower than ever.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

While dependence symptoms were consistently highest among cigarette users, they were increasingly prevalent among those using only e-cigarettes after 2017.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The overall burden of nicotine dependence was substantially lower, but showed a similar pattern, with a peak in 2019 and a notable reduction by 2023.

Even when we re-estimated dependence to account for potential underreporting by students using e-cigs only.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Our new analysis, using NYTS data up to 2023, shows the proportion of high-school students using any nicotine product in the past 30 days peaked at 31.4% in 2019 and has since fallen steeply to a record low of 12.5% in 2023.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

This raises questions as to what has happened to the population burden of nicotine dependence among young people, in the context of decreased prevalence of vaping, but potentially increased dependence among those who vape.

Since 2019, the vaping landscape has changed.

Vaping prevalence among young people has fallen substantially.

But newer products using nicotine salts e-liquids deliver nicotine more efficiently, potentially leading to increased dependence among the remaining pool of vapers.

Dependence on nicotine in US high school students in the context of changing patterns of tobacco product use Background and Aim There have been substantial recent changes in youth tobacco product use in the United States—including, notably, a rapid increase in use of e-cigarettes. It is not known whether, ...

In a previous study that analysed NYTS data up to 2019, we found increases in vaping among US high-school students did not appear to have been accompanied by a similar increase in the population burden of nicotine dependence.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Changing patterns of nicotine product use and nicotine dependence among United States high‐school students: The National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2014–2023 Background and aim Concerns have been raised that e-cigarettes have created a new generation of people addicted to nicotine. This study aimed to measure changes in the proportion of US high-school s...

Concerns have been raised that vaping has created a 'new generation of nicotine addicts'.

We examined changes in the proportion of US high-school students reporting symptoms of nicotine dependence, in the context of changing patterns of nicotine product use.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

“Dual Use” of e-cigarettes alongside cigarettes encompasses varied behavior patterns and motives that have different implications for health and smoking cessation Sarah E Jackson; “Dual Use” of e-cigarettes alongside cigarettes encompasses varied behavior patterns and motives that have different implications for heal

“Dual Use” of e-cigarettes alongside cigarettes encompasses varied behavior patterns and motives that have different implications for health and smoking cessation.

Editorial by Sarah Jackson.

academic.oup.com/ntr/advance-... @drsarahejackson.bsky.social

Vapers emphasised the need to balance policy interventions that make e-cigarettes less appealing to young people but do not deter people from using them as an alternative to smoking.

Policies that target the packaging, appearance, and marketing of e-cigarettes appear much more popular among vapers than those targeting price or the types of devices and flavours that can be sold.

Level of support for proposed vaping policies: an online survey of UK vapers, 2024 The UK government has proposed a range of policies to reduce youth vaping. This study aimed to understand levels of support for the various policies a…

Our new paper examines level of support for proposed vaping policies via an online survey of UK vapers age 16+.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @jamiebrown.bsky.social @lionshahab.bsky.social @ucl-targ.bsky.social @sharoncox.bsky.social

I believe so

Lunch Hour Lecture | Recent trends in smoking and vaping in England The talk will include an overview of changes in the prevalence and patterns of smoking and vaping...

Interested in smoking and vaping? I will be giving a UCL Lunch Hour Lecture covering lots of our recent research findings in this area.

The lecture will take place online on 29 May, 1-2pm. It’s free and all are welcome to attend. You can register here: www.ucl.ac.uk/events/event...

I can’t comment on what other countries have/haven’t done, but in the UK we’ve had progressive tobacco control policies implemented over this period, which are likely to have driven much of this decline.

See ASH’s summary timeline of key policies here: ash.org.uk/uploads/Key-...

Questionable generalizability of Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test‐Consumption scoring warrants caution when used for outcome monitoring: Evidence from simulated and real‐world trial data Background and Aims The “Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test – Consumption” (AUDIT-C), designed for primary-care screening, is frequently repurposed for outcome monitoring in brief interventio...

New in @addictionjournal.bsky.social - may be of interest to @ucl-targ.bsky.social colleagues

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....