Identifying and testing scalable strategies to curb adolescent e-cigarette use

Dr Courtney Barnes, The University of Newcastle

Postdoctoral Fellowship

Years funded: 2026 - 2027

Preventing adolescent e-cigarette use to reduce future heart disease

E-cigarette use (also known as vaping) more than doubles the chance that non-smoking adolescents will take up tobacco smoking in the future. As tobacco use is a major cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related burden in Australia, the rise in adolescent e-cigarette use is of considerable concern. In Australia, 30% of adolescents aged 12-17 years have now tried e-cigarettes. The World Health Organisation and other leading public health agencies (including Heart Foundation Australia) have recommended legislative action, combined with adolescent education and public health programs, to address this issue and reduce future CVD-related burden.

However, a lack of effective education and public health interventions are currently available. Information on the cost and acceptability of these interventions is also rarely reported, making it harder for governments to determine which interventions could be delivered effectively to the broader population (at scale). Without this information, governments are likely to invest in interventions that may be ineffective or inappropriate to deliver at scale.

Research to support effective, scalable prevention

This research aims to fill this evidence gap by creating new knowledge to help policy makers and health practitioners prevent adolescents from using e-cigarettes and reduce future CVD-related burden.

Comprising of three studies, it will provide high quality evidence regarding the effectiveness and scalability of interventions to prevent adolescent e-cigarette use through: examining the effectiveness of a text-message intervention to prevent adolescent e-cigarette use (Study 1); rapidly synthesising evidence of the effectiveness of interventions to prevent adolescent e-cigarette use (Study 2); and examining the scalability of adolescent e-cigarette prevention interventions for the Australian context (Study 3).

This research leverages existing externally funded research grants and involves partnerships with national prevention agencies, policy makers and (inter)national research groups. Findings of the research are likely to have significant implications for public health efforts to reduce adolescent e-cigarette use, thus reducing future tobacco use and CVD-related burden.