Tracking the course of vaping and cigarette smoking across adolescence: the Child to Adult Transition Study

Abstract

Background: Adolescence is characterised by incident substance use which carries risks for lifelong harms. In Australia, public health measures have limited adolescent smoking, but there has been rapid uptake of vaping over the past decade and the natural history of vaping across adolescence is yet unknown. Methods: We used data from 1181 participants from the prospective, longitudinal Child to Adult Transition Study, recruited in 2012 at age nine. We report annual prevalence of vaping, smoking, and dual use, and incidence, age of uptake, and order of first product use from nine annual waves of data spanning ages 12–21. Multiple imputation addressed missing data. Findings: Prevalence of vapi..