e-Cigarette Use among Ecuadorian Students: A Comprehensive Study across Different Educational Levels

Abstract Introduction: Although the World Health Organization requires monitoring of e-cigarette use and up to 40% of youth who self-identified as Hispanic/Latino have reported the ever-use of electronic vapor products in the US, there has been limited research describing the prevalence and patterns of E-cigarette use in Latin America. For this reason, we aim to explore e-cigarette use among Ecuadorian students from various educational levels, such as primary, secondary, and university. Methods: A cross-sectional was conducted in 2022 using the US Centers for Disease Control National Youth Tobacco Survey. Participants were students aged 10 years and older from Ecuador. They were categorized as never-, current- or former-users. The same categories were applied to combusted cigarettes. The IRB approval was HCK-CEISH-2022-003. Stata 17.0 was used to perform descriptive statistics and chi-squared tests to explore the associations between e-cigarette use and demographic variables. Results: Of 3608 participants, 16% were current e-cigarette users, 21% former users and 63% never users. Among current users, 3.41% belonged to primary school, 25.3% to secondary and 61% to university. Age of initiation of an e-cigarette was 12 ± 4 years. More than half of current users has ever tried a combusted cigarette. 62% used disposable devices, 75% of surveyed vaped nicotine and more than 90% used flavored e-cigarettes, being fruit the most used flavor. Conclusions: This is the first study to show the youth's e-cigarette use trends and preferences in Ecuador. Our findings point to a substantial public health risk for Ecuadorian youth.