1Cademy - Perceived risks of e-cigarettes

Concept

Perceived risks of e-cigarettes

This study is funded by the Imperial Brands, which is a tobacco company.
The study by Malt et al. (2020) looks at the perception of relative harm from e-cigarettes versus regular cigarettes using publicly available national data from PATH (Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health).
The article found that the proportion of US adults who thought of ENDS products as less harmful than regular cigarettes decreased over the past few years: from 41.1% (CI 40.1–42.1%) in 2013–2014, 31.5% (CI 30.8–32.2%) in 2014–2015 and 25.3% (CI 24.6–26.0%) in 2015–2016. On the other hand, the proportion of US adults who perceived ENDSs as equally, or more, harmful than cigarettes increased: from 53.7% (CI 52.3–55.1%), 64.9% (CI 63.6–66.2%) to 72.7% (CI 71.5–73.9%).
Although the data seem to show reasonable trends, the authors noticeably use biased language. For example, they claim that those who perceived ENDS as less harmful "correctly perceived" the fact, and those who did not, "incorrectly perceived". They also claimed "Current adult smokers appear to be poorly informed about the relative risks of e-cigarettes yet have potentially the most to gain from transitioning to these products."

Updated 2021-08-23

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