News by Subject Social & Behavior

A UCLA-led report published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine exposes what the authors call a weakness in the high-profile 'Best Hospitals Honor Roll' published annually by US News and World Report.

This randomized clinical trial compared the effectiveness of two smartphone apps that use different approaches to help smokers quit.

People who smoke are increasingly using e-cigarettes to try to quit smoking, a study by researchers at the University of Otago, Wellington, has found.

The vast majority of Twitter users who vape with JUUL e-cigarettes are not using the devices to stop smoking or to improve their health, according to a research team led by University of Utah Health scientists. The researchers say this finding, which challenges JUUL's stated mission of improving smokers' lives, could help hone anti-smoking and vaping efforts targeted at Twitter users, particularly underage teens.

E-cigarette, or vaping, associated lung injury (EVALI) has sickened thousands of people, most under the age of 35. Studies have linked vitamin E acetate, an oily substance in some vaping liquids, to the disorder. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Chemical Research in Toxicology have uncovered a possible mechanism: Vitamin E acetate could increase the fluidity of lung surfactant, causing the surfactant layer to collapse, contributing to symptoms such as shortness of breath and lung inflammation.

Researchers at George Mason University found that students perceived e-cigarette emissions to be more harmful when accurate labels such as 'chemicals' and 'aerosols' were used to describe emissions, compared to tobacco industry coined jargon like 'vapor.' Students who viewed questions about 'aerosol' or 'chemical' were more likely to perceive secondhand exposure to e-cigarettes to be 'harmful/very harmful.' Further, students who perceived greater harmfulness from e-cigarette exposure were more likely to support a tobacco-free campus policy.

University of Guelph researchers are the first to discover that adolescents react differently to e-cigarette vapour than adults.

Researchers tested different cleaning methods for thirdhand smoke in homes. They recommend keeping household dust as low as possible, and cleaning high-touch surfaces frequently.