Use of ‘Elf Bar’ among youth and young adults who currently vape in England: cross-sectional associations with demographics, dependence indicators and reasons for use

TY - JOUR

T1 - Use of ‘Elf Bar’ among youth and young adults who currently vape in England

T2 - cross-sectional associations with demographics, dependence indicators and reasons for use

AU - East, Katherine

AU - Taylor, Eve V.

AU - Simonavičius, Erikas

AU - Reid, Jessica L.

AU - Burkhalter, Robin

AU - McNeill, Ann

AU - Hammond, David

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction.

PY - 2024/2/7

Y1 - 2024/2/7

N2 - Background and aims: Elf Bar is currently the leading e-cigarette (vape) brand in Great Britain. This study examined youth and young adults’ use of Elf Bar, socio-demographic characteristics and dependence indicators and reasons for use over other brands. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting and participants: Online 2022 International Tobacco Control Project Youth Tobacco and Vaping Survey (N = 1355 16-29-year-olds in England who had vaped in the past 30 days). Measurements: Currently using Elf Bar most often (versus other brands) and associations with: socio-demographics, owning a vaping device, dependence indicators and reasons for brand choice. Logistic regressions were used. Findings: Among 16–29-year-olds who vaped in the past 30 days, 48.4% (n = 732) reported Elf Bar as the brand they used most often. Among 16–17-year-olds, 40.7% used Elf Bar over other brands; this was lower than among 18–19-year-olds (60.1%) and 20–29-year-olds (47.4%) (P ≤ 0.002). Using Elf Bar over other brands was higher among those who were female (55.2 versus 41.5% male), identified as White (53.1 versus 30.9% other/mixed), a student (54.5 versus 44.3% not), did not own a vape (66.7 versus 44.4% who did) and typically vaped 5–8 hours after waking (62.7 versus 36.8% within 5 min) (P ≤ 0.044). Most who vaped but had never smoked used Elf Bar (64.3%), although use did not significantly differ from those who currently (45.4%), formerly (42.3%) or experimentally (48.7%) smoked (all P ≥ 0.060). Popular reasons for choosing Elf Bar over other brands were better flavour/taste (47.5%), less expensive (28.7%), easier to get (26.1%), smoother to inhale (24.0%) and popularity (23.1%). ‘Better for quitting smoking’ (10.1%) was least frequently selected reason for choosing Elf Bar over other brands. Conclusions: Elf Bar brand e-cigarettes were used by approximately half of 16–29-year-olds who vaped in England in 2022 and was mainly chosen over other brands for subjective responses (e.g. flavour/taste), rather than for quitting smoking.

AB - Background and aims: Elf Bar is currently the leading e-cigarette (vape) brand in Great Britain. This study examined youth and young adults’ use of Elf Bar, socio-demographic characteristics and dependence indicators and reasons for use over other brands. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting and participants: Online 2022 International Tobacco Control Project Youth Tobacco and Vaping Survey (N = 1355 16-29-year-olds in England who had vaped in the past 30 days). Measurements: Currently using Elf Bar most often (versus other brands) and associations with: socio-demographics, owning a vaping device, dependence indicators and reasons for brand choice. Logistic regressions were used. Findings: Among 16–29-year-olds who vaped in the past 30 days, 48.4% (n = 732) reported Elf Bar as the brand they used most often. Among 16–17-year-olds, 40.7% used Elf Bar over other brands; this was lower than among 18–19-year-olds (60.1%) and 20–29-year-olds (47.4%) (P ≤ 0.002). Using Elf Bar over other brands was higher among those who were female (55.2 versus 41.5% male), identified as White (53.1 versus 30.9% other/mixed), a student (54.5 versus 44.3% not), did not own a vape (66.7 versus 44.4% who did) and typically vaped 5–8 hours after waking (62.7 versus 36.8% within 5 min) (P ≤ 0.044). Most who vaped but had never smoked used Elf Bar (64.3%), although use did not significantly differ from those who currently (45.4%), formerly (42.3%) or experimentally (48.7%) smoked (all P ≥ 0.060). Popular reasons for choosing Elf Bar over other brands were better flavour/taste (47.5%), less expensive (28.7%), easier to get (26.1%), smoother to inhale (24.0%) and popularity (23.1%). ‘Better for quitting smoking’ (10.1%) was least frequently selected reason for choosing Elf Bar over other brands. Conclusions: Elf Bar brand e-cigarettes were used by approximately half of 16–29-year-olds who vaped in England in 2022 and was mainly chosen over other brands for subjective responses (e.g. flavour/taste), rather than for quitting smoking.

KW - Disposables

KW - Elf Bar

KW - survey

KW - vaping

KW - young adults

KW - youth

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85188993255&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/add.16463

DO - 10.1111/add.16463

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85188993255

SN - 0965-2140

JO - Addiction

JF - Addiction

ER -