Youth Tobacco Usage Rates Are Falling, FDA Says, but Kids Who Use Tobacco Are Using More of It

Still, 10% of U.S. middle and high school students (2.8 million youth) reported current use of any tobacco product, mostly e-cigarettes, whose usage among youth dropped from 14.1% in 2022 to 10% in 2023. E-cigarettes remain the most common tobacco product among middle and high school students, with 25.2% using e-cigarettes daily and 89.4% using flavored e-cigarettes.

“It’s encouraging to see this substantial decline in e-cigarette use among high schoolers within the past year, which is a win for public health,” Brian King, PhD, MPH, director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said. “But we can’t rest on our laurels. There’s more work to be done to build on this progress.”

That work needs to focus on messaging for middle-school users, whose current overall tobacco product use increased from 4.5% in 2022 to 6.6% in 2023 and multiple tobacco product use increased from 1.5% to 2.5%, respectively, FDA reported. 

E-cigarettes remained the most commonly used tobacco product among both middle- and high-school students for the 10th year in a row, FDA said, and nearly all (89.4%) used flavored products. Among the youth who reported current e-cigarette use, about 25% used e-cigarettes every day.

FDA partners with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct the annual National Youth Tobacco Survey, which “provides national data on long-term, intermediate, and short-term indicators key to the design, implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive tobacco prevention and control programs.” It also serves as a baseline for Healthy People 2030’s goals for reducing tobacco use among adolescents.

The youth vaping epidemic and tobacco reduction and cessation have long been ONS health policy priorities. Find an arsenal of advocacy resources in ONS’s Tobacco, E-Cigarettes, and Vaping Learning Library and continue to champion the cause.