Objective: The purpose of this study is to predict the transitions of young adult combustible tobacco and e-cigarette product users.
Methods: The study was longitudinal taking place over 8 waves at six-month intervals. At each wave, past 30 day use of combustible and e-cigarettes products were assessed. The msm package for R was used such that a multi-state model was fitted to longitudinal data. Transition intensities between states across time were estimated via maximum likelihood, yielding parameter estimates and 95% confidence intervals.
Results: At the start of the study, .2% of respondents were solely using e-cigarettes, and about 23% were solely using combustible products. By the final wave, e-cigarette use had risen to 2.4% and combustible use had dropped to 18%. Compared to smokers, e-cigarette users were 32% more likely to transition into a non- current use state compared to combustible tobacco product users.
Conclusion: Our findings indicate e-cigarette users are not likely to progress to cigarette smoking and are more likely to become non-users of any tobacco product, whereas cigarette smokers were more likely to remain smokers and less likely to quit.
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