Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
PROJECT SUMMARY The overall goal of this project is to determine whether vaping is associated with smoking cessation in US adults by conducting secondary analyses that leverage a novel “intensive” longitudinal national data source with bi-weekly survey waves. Current observational evidence of the association between vaping and smoking cessation using national longitudinal data sources (e.g., the PATH study) may provide insufficient temporal precision due to the long inter-survey intervals (e.g., 12-month). Long intervals are problematic because many smokers make multiple quit attempts within a year and vacillate between abstinence and smoking. In addition, given that smokers who try e-cigarettes are more likely to have nicotine dependence, have higher quit smoking motivation, and have sociodemographic factors that may impact cessation, selection biases are always a threat to observational studies examining vaping-assisted smoking cessation. Also, addressing mental health in studies examining the prospective association of vaping with smoking cessation is crucial because quit attempters may face anxiety, depression, and other symptoms that spike within the first several weeks of nicotine abstinence. To address this research gap, the proposed study will leverage the nationally representative longitudinal panel survey of the Understanding America Study, including 8,306 US adults with 26 bi-weekly survey waves (April 2020 - July 2021) and nine additional monthly follow-up surveys (October 2021 - June 2022) with past-week vaping and smoking frequency measures. Specifically, this study will use the subsample of baseline past-week smokers (n=1154, 16.6%) to assess bi-weekly associations of time-varying nicotine vaping with time-lagged smoking abstinences two weeks later across follow-ups extending up to 110 weeks after baseline, which will enable us to avoid insufficient temporal precision in previous national studies of vaping-assisted smoking cessation. In addition, intensive longitudinal multi-level modeling that partitions between- and within-subject variance to address between-person confounds will be used to test our hypothesized model of vaping-related smoking cessation, which will also mitigate selection bias. Specific research aims are to: (1) determine short-term (2 weeks) and long-term (up to 110 weeks) associations of daily or non-daily (vs. no) vaping with smoking cessation; (2) determine whether anxiety/depression symptoms are a mediator and consequence of vaping-related smoking cessation; (3) examine other substance use as a time- varying moderator of the association of vaping with smoking cessation and the anxiety/depression mediation pathway. The proposed study will address whether vaping encourages smokers to initiate and sustain smoking cessation in the real world, and if they experience cessation-related mental health benefits.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
