Expanding the E-Liquid Flavor Wheel: Classification of Emerging E-Liquid Flavors in Online Vape Shops

Shaoying Ma, Zefeng Qiu, Qian Yang, John F. P. Bridges, Jian Chen and Ce Shang ()
Additional contact information
Shaoying Ma: Center for Tobacco Research, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43214, USA
Zefeng Qiu: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Qian Yang: Center for Tobacco Research, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43214, USA
John F. P. Bridges: Department of Biomedical Informatics, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Jian Chen: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Ce Shang: Department of Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-14

Abstract: Introduction: Electronic cigarettes are the most popular tobacco product among U.S. youth, and over 80% of current youth users of e-cigarettes use flavored e-cigarettes, with fruit, mint/menthol, and candy/sweets being the most popular flavors. A number of new e-liquid flavors are currently emerging in the online e-cigarette market. Menthol and other flavored e-cigarettes could incentivize combustible tobacco smokers to transition to e-cigarette use. Methods: From February to May 2021, we scraped data of over 14,000 e-liquid products, including detailed descriptions of their flavors, from five national online vape shops. Building upon the existing e-liquid flavor wheel, we expanded the semantic databases (i.e., key terms) to identify flavors using WordNet—a major database for keyword matching and group discussion. Using the enriched databases, we classified 14,000+ e-liquid products into the following 11 main flavor categories: “fruit”, “dessert/candy/sweets”, “coffee/tea”, “alcohol”, “other beverages”, “tobacco”, “mint/menthol”, “nuts”, “spices/pepper”, “other flavors”, and “unspecified flavor”. Results: We find that the most prominent flavor sold in the five online vape shop in 2021 was fruit flavored products, followed by dessert/candy/other sweets. Online vendors often label a product with several flavor profiles, such as fruit and menthol. Conclusions: Given that online stores market products with multiple flavor profiles and most of their products contain fruit flavor, the FDA may have issued marketing denial orders to some of these products. It is important to further examine how online stores respond to the FDA flavor restrictions (e.g., compliance or non-compliance).

Keywords: vaping; e-liquid; e-cigarette; flavor; electronic nicotine delivery systems; ENDS; electronic cigarette; tobacco; regulation; FDA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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