P2B369: Health in Your Hands: Addressing the Florida Pediatric Vaping Epidemic

Background: Vaping and e-cigarette use among the pediatric population remains a significant public health epidemic. E-cigarettes have continued to be the most abused form of tobacco in youth populations since 2014, with nicotine as a commonly vaped product. In 2022, about 1 in 10 middle school and high school students reported the current use of e-cigarettes, and approximately 20% of youth ages 11-17 in Florida have ever tried electronic vapor products. There is a need for vaping prevention in Florida pediatric populations. Currently, multiple programs exist nationwide to reduce vaping in the pediatric population. Examples include smokeSCREEN, CATCH My Breath, and The Real Cost campaign. CATCH My Breath, a multi-session classroom vaping education program, was found to significantly reduce nicotine vaping likelihood in Texas in the year after participation. Preventing the initiation of e-cigarette use in minors can curb future e-cigarette and cigarette use in order to avoid health consequences.

Project Description: The Health in Your Hands program was created to educate middle school students in Palm Beach County, Florida about e-cigarette use, through a series of interactive discussions and activities, with the ultimate goal of vaping prevention. The curriculum is 8 weeks long (1 session per week, 30 min to 1 hour per session). Topics covered in the program include vaping health consequences, addiction, stress management, and methods to combat peer pressure. These topics were chosen to target specific barriers to prevention of teen vaping (ex: peer conformity, emotional relief, lack of knowledge about the harms).

Discussion: We created the program based on the need for further reduction of pediatric vaping in Palm Beach County, Florida. The percentage of youth ages 11-17 who have ever tried electronic vapor products in 2022 for Palm Beach County is approximately 14.4% (from the Florida Youth Tobacco Survey). The percentage of Florida middle school students who currently used an electronic vapor product on at least 1 day during the 30 days before the survey was 4.2% in 6th graders, tripling to 12.6% in 8th graders. Therefore, targeting a middle school population specifically through our program may convey benefits with early intervention. With significant exposure to pro-vaping social media and advertisements, our program aims to address social media and marketing tactics surrounding vaping.

Conclusion: We plan to implement a pilot program in Fall of 2023 at a local middle school. Feedback from the initial program will be incorporated into future iterations. A future objective is to create a formal, standardized implementation lesson plan guide for use throughout Palm Beach County and the state of Florida.