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Vaping prevention and quit resources: top tips for parents and educators

Parents and educators have an important role to play in reaching students with the information they need to make informed choices. By making information about the health effects of tobacco use accessible and providing tools to quit if they are already vaping, parents and educators can make a huge difference during this critical time for youth tobacco and nicotine use.

According to the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey, e-cigarettes were the most used tobacco product among middle and high school students in 2023 (7.7%; 2.13 million), followed by cigarettes (1.6%), cigars (1.6%), nicotine pouches (1.5%), smokeless tobacco (1.2%), other oral nicotine products (1.2%), hookahs (1.1%), heated tobacco products (1.0%), and pipe tobacco (0.5%).

As new tobacco products continue to appear on the market, it is also increasingly important that parents and educators familiarize themselves with new products that are gaining popularity, such as pouches, lozenges and synthetic nicotine products.

By staying informed, parents and educators can act as a valuable resource for the young people in their lives. Here are some resources for parents, educators, and others working with young people.

Free resources exist to help prevent youth e-cigarette use and help those already vaping quit. Vaping: Know the Truth, a curriculum from Truth Initiative and Kaiser Permanente in collaboration with the American Heart Association, gives young people facts about e-cigarette use. Developed as part of the truth® campaign, the curriculum is a 40- to 45-minute self-administered digital course for middle and high school grade levels.

The curriculum also introduces students who are already vaping to This is Quitting, now part of EX Program, a first-of-its-kind text message program that is helping more than 750,000 young people quit vaping.

This article was originally published on January 25, 2024.