The study of staff working in Australian schools found around a quarter of those working with primary school-aged children said vaping had escalated in the past two years.

And they said “stealth vaping” by using products that were designed to hide vaping activity was helping make the use of e-cigarettes potentially even more widespread among children and teens.

The findings, published Wednesday in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, is the most precise benchmark so far on the size of the problem in Australia and demonstrates how worried teachers and other school staff nationwide have become about rising e-cigarette use at schools.

They said it was affecting student mental health and performance, and more than half said vaping had caused a shift in school culture.

Lead researcher Professor Simone Pettigrew of Sydney’s The George Institute for Global Health said vaping by Australian school-aged children, particularly pre-teens, was concerning.
“Most of what we know about student vaping comes from research conducted in secondary schools in the United States,” Pettigrew said.

“Our study shows some concerning trends in e-cigarette use in Australian schools, particularly primary schools, that need to be nipped in the bud to prevent future harm.”

The survey of 196 staff working in schools across Australia found 61 per cent reported that at least some of their students use e-cigarettes, which included 35 per cent of staff working with primary school-aged children through to 84 per cent of those who work with secondary school-aged children.

Half (51 per cent) reported an increase in e-cigarette use among students in their schools over the past two years, ranging from 27 per cent among primary school students to 72 per cent of those working with secondary school students.

More than three quarters expressed concern about increasing e-cigarette use among adolescents, with one third estimating that vaping was done by “moderate to large proportions” of the student body at their school.

“While the estimates from those working with primary school children were much smaller, it is concerning that more than a quarter of those working with this age group had observed increases in student vaping over the previous two years,” the report said.

In response to why students were vaping, staff reported that the main motivation in both primary and secondary schools was that students perceived e-cigarettes to be “cool” or “intriguing” and less harmful than regular cigarettes.

“While education can address knowledge deficits, it will likely need to be supplemented with strategies that reduce perceived coolness,” Pettigrew said.
“Such efforts are complicated by the industry facilitating ‘stealth vaping’ through product innovations that make it easier to conceal vaping activity.”

In the past week, Queensland police have released a series of anti-vaping videos urging students to think twice about vaping.

Queensland Health also launched the Vape Truths campaign featuring Dr Karl Kruszelnicki to try and stem the rising use of e-cigarettes.

Pettigrew said the survey showed teachers understood that students had no difficulty accessing e-cigarettes. “We found that according to their teachers, primary school students were more likely to get e-cigarettes from their siblings or to take them from home without permission,” Pettigrew said.

“Secondary school aged children were reported to be more likely to get someone else to buy for them, receive them from a friend aged over 18 or via the Internet.”

Pettigrew said despite the observed increase in e-cigarette use, only one-third of the school staff surveyed reported that their schools had a vaping policy or provided vaping-prevention education for students.