Examining Disparities in Current E-Cigarette Use among U.S. Adults before and after the WHO Declaration of the COVID-19 Pandemic in March 2020

Hadii M. Mamudu (), David Adzrago, Oluwabunmi Dada, Emmanuel A. Odame, Manik Ahuja, Manul Awasthi, Florence M. Weierbach, Faustine Williams, David W. Stewart and Timir K. Paul
Additional contact information
Hadii M. Mamudu: College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614, USA
David Adzrago: Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research and School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Oluwabunmi Dada: Department of Occupational Safety and Health, Murray State University, 157 Industry and Technology Center, Murray, KY 42071, USA
Emmanuel A. Odame: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Ryals Public Health Building (RPHB), University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1665 University Boulevard, Birmingham, AL 35233, USA
Manik Ahuja: College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614, USA
Manul Awasthi: College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614, USA
Florence M. Weierbach: Center for Cardiovascular Risk Research, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614, USA
Faustine Williams: Division of Intramural Research, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
David W. Stewart: Center for Cardiovascular Risk Research, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614, USA
Timir K. Paul: Center for Cardiovascular Risk Research, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614, USA

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: This paper aims to estimate the prevalence of e-cigarette use before and after the COVID-19 pandemic declaration and to delineate disparities in use across subpopulations. Data were derived from the 2020 Health Information National Trends Survey ( N = 3865) to conduct weighted multivariable logistic regression and marginal analyses. The overall prevalence of current e-cigarette use increased from 4.79% to 8.63% after the COVID-19 pandemic declaration. Furthermore, non-Hispanic Black people and Hispanic people had lower odds of current e-cigarette use than non-Hispanic White people, but no significant differences were observed between groups before the pandemic. Compared to heterosexual participants, sexual minority (SM) participants had higher odds of current e-cigarette use after the declaration, with insignificant differences before. People who had cardiovascular disease conditions, relative to those without, had higher odds of current e-cigarette use after the declaration, but no group differences were found before the declaration. The marginal analyses showed that before and after the pandemic declaration, SM individuals had a significantly higher probability of using e-cigarettes compared to heterosexual individuals. These findings suggest the importance of adopting a subpopulation approach to understand and develop initiatives to address substance use, such as e-cigarettes, during pandemics and other public health emergencies.

Keywords: e-cigarettes; COVID-19 pandemic; disparities; sexual identities; health conditions; substance use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/9/5649/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/9/5649/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:9:p:5649-:d:1133452

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().