Current tobacco use prevalent in middle, high school students

Almost one-third of high school students report current use of tobacco products, according to research published in the Dec. 6 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Teresa W. Wang, Ph.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues examined tobacco product use in 2019 using data from 19,018 National Youth Tobacco Survey questionnaires completed and weighted to represent about 27.0 million students. This included 8,837 middle school questionnaires and 10,097 high school questionnaires.

The researchers found that about 53.3 and 24.3 percent of high school and middle school students, respectively, reported having ever tried a tobacco product in 2019. Overall, 31.2 and 12.5 percent of high school and middle school students, respectively, reported current (past 30-day) use of a tobacco product. The most commonly cited tobacco products currently used were electronic cigarettes, used by 27.5 and 10.5 percent of high school and middle school students, respectively. Overall, 57.8 and 57.5 percent of current tobacco users, respectively, reported seriously thinking about quitting use of tobacco products and reported stopping use of all tobacco products for one or more days because they were trying to quit.

"Because tobacco products might continue to diversify, surveillance among youths for all forms of tobacco product use and associated factors is important to the development of public health policy and action at the national, state, and community levels," the authors write.