The 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) report is this month’s featured content on Hawaii Health Matters. Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability and death in the United States and most people start using tobacco in their teens.
The 2019 report shows:
- 1 in 4 high school and 1 in 8 middle school students (6.2 million total) in the U.S. used some type of tobacco product in the last 30 days.
- E-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among both middle (10.5%) and high (27.5%) school students for the sixth year in a row.
- E-cigarette use continues to rise among middle and high school students. Current use jumped from about 3.6 million users in 2018 to a whopping 5 million students using an e-cigarette in the past 30 days in 2019.
- Unlike cigarettes, girls are equally as likely to use e-cigarettes as boys.
- Many students who use tobacco products report using products with flavors such as menthol, alcohol, candy, fruit, chocolate or other sweets, including:
- 69.6% of any tobacco product users
- 68.8% of e-cigarette users
- 46.7% of cigarette smokers
- 41.9% of cigar smokers
NYTS is a cross-sectional, school based, self-administered survey of U.S. middle and high school students. The 2019 NYTS sampling frame consisted of all regular public and private schools with students enrolled in grades 6-12 across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The NYTS has traditionally been conducted as a pen and paper survey, periodically from 1999-2009 and annually since; however, 2019 was the first time the NYTS administered in schools using tablet computers. The 2019 NYTS Methodology report can be found here.
Results from the 2019 Hawaii Youth Tobacco Survey will be available later this year.