Changes in U.S. Adolescent Nicotine Vaping Prevalence from 2022 to 2023: The Role of Reduced Initiation Three Years Earlier during the Onset of the Pandemic.

These findings caution against looking to contemporaneous policy for explanations of the large, one-year decline in nicotine vaping from 2022 to 2023. It can be tempting to interpret the decline as a victory for current efforts to restrict adolescent access to vaping products, or current education/media campaigns that warn adolescents of the dangers of vaping. The findings of this study suggest, instead, that the one-year vaping declines primarily result from declines in initiation that were set into place three years ago during the pandemic onset, more so than the immediate result of contemporaneous policy.