Content Analysis of E-cigarette News Articles Amidst the 2019 Vaping-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI) Outbreak in the U.S.

E-cigarette news coverage in 2019 was high, driven in large part by news coverage of the EVALI outbreak. Indeed, the peak in e-cigarette news articles in September directly coincided with the peak in EVALI cases in the U.S. Of note, articles that mentioned EVALI frequently discussed youth e-cigarette use, JUUL, and flavor bans, which may have triggered national and state-level policy responses, and likely influenced public perceptions (including misperceptions) regarding the harms of e-cigarettes.