LAUSR

Key Points Question Among adolescents who initiate smoking after electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use, is their baseline e-cigarette use status associated with continued smoking a few years later? Findings This cohort study using data from a national sample of 8671 cigarette-naive adolescents found that youth who had used e-cigarettes at baseline, compared with those who had not, had higher odds of continuing smoking 2 years following initiating smoking the year after baseline. However, the absolute risks of continued smoking for both baseline e-cigarette users and nonusers were very small, as were the differences in absolute risks. Meaning Although the significantly higher odds of continued smoking among e-cigarette users suggest a potentially important problem, the small magnitude of absolute risks and the minor risk differences in continued smoking between baseline e-cigarette users and nonusers indicate a much less consequential problem: few adolescents are likely to report continued smoking after initiation regardless of baseline e-cigarette use.