Canada has among the highest rates of nicotine vaping in the world, with more than one in 10 high school students vaping daily. The intensity of vaping and measures of addiction have also increased in recent years, particularly among young people.
Although there is a consensus among researchers that vaping poses a health risk, it has not yet been determined how severe it may be for lung health and chronic disease.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Heart and Stroke and the Canadian Lung Association have awarded Dr. David Hammond, a professor in the School of Public Health Sciences, $2 million to examine the health impact of vaping among more than 1,000 young people who will be followed over a two-year period.
The team includes researchers from the University of Waterloo, McGill University, the University of Toronto, Ottawa Heart Institute, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the U.S. FDA, as well as experts from Physicians for a Smoke-free Canada, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health and Maamwesying North Shore Community Health Services.
The study will collect detailed measures of vaping behaviour and will examine chemicals in the aerosol inhaled from e-cigarettes, as well as toxic chemicals and early indicators of damage in the blood, saliva and urine of young people who vape.
These biomarkers of exposure and harm will be compared over a two-year period between young people who vape, young people who smoke and young people who neither smoke or vape. The study will also examine whether specific vaping flavours and nicotine formulations are associated with different levels of exposure and harm.
The award is a part of a $19.3 million investment made by the Government of Canada and partners to support the study of ongoing, new and emerging threats to lung health. Over the last five years alone, the Government of Canada, through CIHR, has invested over $273 million in respiratory health research.
As a leading global research-intensive university, Waterloo researchers like Hammond are working hard to identify and solve significant, complex challenges facing humanity and our planet. To learn more about his research on youth nicotine use and national-level tobacco restriction interventions, check out Regulations grounded in research are saving lives by adding restrictions to tobacco, recently published on Waterloo News.