Stop Smoking Practitioners’ understanding of e-cigarettes use and efficacy with particular reference to vapers’ socioeconomic status

E-cigarettes, which use battery power to create an inhaled aerosol, were first introduced into the UK towards the end of the first decade of the twenty first century. Half of current smokers in the UK had tried e-cigarettes by 2015 (ONS, 2017). E-cigarettes can help smokers quit or cut down cigarette use (PHE, 2015a).

Stop smoking services and e-cigarettes
Local Stop Smoking Services (SSS) help smokers to quit and reduce inequalities in health via the provision of pharmacotherapy and behavioural support. SSS practitioners in England meet large numbers of smokers wishing to quit (382500 smokers were treated in 2015-16 (NHS Digital, 2016)) and so are well placed to observe trends in use of e-cigarettes among this population. We have therefore conducted a series of surveys of practitioners’ views on their clients’ use of e-cigarettes in 2011, 2013 and 2014 (Hiscock et al., 2015; Hiscock et al., 2014) to enhance our understanding of a fast moving new phenomenon from a valuable viewpoint.

The UK National Centre for Smoking Cessation Training (NCSCT) recommends that SSS “be open to e-cigarette use in people keen to try them; especially in those that have tried, but not succeeded, in stopping smoking with the use of licensed stop smoking medicines”(NCSCT, 2014). However in 2014 some local services were not embracing e-cigarettes (Hiscock et al., 2015) .

Socioeconomic status and e-cigarettes
Tobacco is responsible for about half the socioeconomic status (SES) difference in death rates.(Jha et al., 2006) SES differences between e-cigarette users are not yet clearly established.