29 per cent of Canadian students from Grades 7 to 12 have tried an e-cigarette,
A UBC Okanagan researcher says Canada is falling behind in developing intervention programs to stop young people from beginning to vape.
Dr. Laura Struik, an Assistant Professor with UBCO’s School of Nursing and a Canadian Cancer Society Emerging Scholar, researches nicotine dependence, cancer prevention and behaviour change using digital technologies.
Dr. Struik is disheartened by the results from the recent Health Canada’s Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey, which states that 29 per cent of Canadian students from Grades 7 to 12 have tried an e-cigarette, and 17 per cent have vaped in the past month, revealing that the number of Canadian teens using e-cigarettes are among highest in the world.
Dr. Struik says, “Youth and young adults are disproportionately at risk for the harmful effects of vaping because exposure at this age alters natural brain development and impacts lung health early on. As a result, there has been a long-standing urgency to intervene over the last few years, and we wanted to know what has been done across our nation.”
Read the full story here: UBC Okanagan News