About 11.3 percent of all middle and high school students reported currently using any tobacco product in 2022, with electronic cigarettes the most commonly used product, according to research published in the Nov. 11 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Eunice Park-Lee, Ph.D., from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland, and colleagues analyzed data from the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey to estimate current use of eight tobacco products among U.S. middle and high school students.

The researchers found that about 11.3 percent of all students (representing 3.08 million persons) reported currently using any tobacco product in 2022, including 16.5 and 4.5 percent of high school and middle school students, respectively (2.51 million and 530,000 persons, respectively). The most commonly used tobacco product among high school and middle school students was electronic cigarettes (14.1 and 3.3 percent [2.14 million and 380,000 persons], respectively). Of all students, about 3.7 percent, representing 1 million people, reported currently smoking any combustible tobacco product. Certain population groups had higher current use of any tobacco product, including 13.5 percent of non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native students; 16.0 and 16.6 percent of students identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and students identifying as transgender, respectively; 18.3 percent of students reporting severe psychological distress; and 27.2 percent of students with low academic achievement.

“Continued surveillance efforts of all tobacco product types, including novel products, and sustained implementation of population-based tobacco control strategies, combined with regulation by FDA, are warranted to prevent and reduce youth tobacco product use,” the authors write.

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