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Public Health England’s (PHE) seventh independent report on vaping in England, carried out by researchers at King’s College London, found that:
- nicotine vaping products were the most popular aid (27.2%) used by smokers trying to quit in England in 2020.
- using a vaping product as part of a quit attempt in local stop smoking services had some of the highest quit success rates – between 59.7% and 74% in 2019 and 2020.
- 38% of smokers in 2020 believed that vaping is as harmful as smoking – 15% believed that vaping is more harmful.
The research shows that 4.8% of young people (aged 11 to 18 years) reported vaping at least once a month – the same as last year – and most of these were either current or former smokers. Smoking prevalence among young people, including those who smoked sometimes or more than once a week, was 6.7% in March 2020.
Similar to last year, around 6% of adults are current vapers, equating to about 2.7 million adult vapers in England. Smoking prevalence continues to fall and is between 13.8% and 16%. Vaping prevalence was between 17.5% and 20.1% among current smokers, around 11% among former smokers, and between 0.3% and 0.6% among those who have never smoked. The proportion of vapers who also smoke, or ‘dual users’, has declined since 2012.
Vaping has plateaued in adults and young people since the last PHE report in March 2020, because there are still concerns around increasing misperception of the relative risk caused by vaping products, compared to smoked tobacco. In 2020, 38% of smokers believed that vaping is as harmful as smoking and 15% believed that vaping is more harmful. This is out of line with expert reviews from the UK and US, concluding that using regulated nicotine vaping products is far less harmful than smoking.
Professor John Newton, director of health improvement at PHE, said: “The best thing that a smoker can do is to stop smoking completely and the evidence shows that vaping is one of the most effective quit aids available, helping around 50,000 smokers quit a year.
“Thousands more could have quit except for unfounded safety fears about e-cigarettes. The evidence has been clear for some time that, while not risk-free vaping is far less harmful than smoking.”
Professor Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addiction at King’s College London and lead author of the report, added: “What is concerning is that smokers, particularly those from disadvantaged groups, incorrectly and increasingly believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking. This is not true and means fewer smokers try vaping.”
