With the advent of e-cigarettes, millions of smokers gained a way to get their nicotine fix without many of the negative health effects of lighting tobacco on fire. Of course, because the technology is relatively new, there’s plenty we don’t know about any other adverse long-term effects. That’s one reason it’s particularly troubling that young people have adopted vaping, too. Now the latest data on youth vaping trends is out, and it’s showing some interesting gender differences.
In a letter published today in JAMA Pediatrics, a team of researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina reports that vaping is on the rise among girls. It’s a bit puzzling. For decades, the reverse was true—more men and boys indulged in nicotine products than women. But according to data from the youth cohort for the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, girls have been more likely to vape than boys since 2021, with a wider gap in older teens.
Read more: “How Nicotine Disrupts the “Lung-Brain Axis”—And Could Lead to Dementia”
The new study is the first to capture vaping trends among those between the ages of 12 and 17 across a full decade, from 2014 through 2024, focusing on those who had an established habit. The data came from self-reported surveys, which means it’s likely the findings underestimate the magnitude of the problem.
“That makes this a pretty conservative estimate of use,” study author Brandon Sanford explained in a statement. “These aren’t youth who simply tried vaping once or twice. We’re talking about adolescents who are regularly using e-cigarettes now.”
Older teen girls (aged 15-17) saw the biggest rise in vaping with 4.9 percent of them reporting regular use in 2021 and 7.8 percent in 2024. By contrast, only 4.6 percent of boys in the same age cohort said they were regular users in 2024.
According to the team, the latest data show a drop in teen girls vaping, but the gender gap still persists and the reasons remain unclear. “We would love to look into some of the whys,” Sanford said. “Are there shifts in motivation to use, marketing, social influences or perceptions?”
Drilling down into data the researchers found some other interesting contours. Vaping was more common among boys from 2014 through 2018, then a spike in both genders in 2018 and 2019 erased the gender gap. According to the team, this surge coincides with the popularity of new products like JUUL e-cigarettes—slim, rechargeable devices that use disposable cartridges of nicotine-salts in glycerol and propylene glycol.
The good news is that the number of teens smoking combustible cigarettes has dropped precipitously. According to the data, less than half of 1 percent of both boys and girls were established smokers, something the team calls a “massive health win.”
Still, nicotine by itself carries its own negative health externalities. For adolescents, that includes addiction at a time when their brains are still developing. Vaping may be safer than smoking, but without long-term data we won’t know exactly what teens are risking by picking up the habit. 
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