E‐cigarette price sensitivity among middle‐ and high‐school students: evidence from monitoring the future

Authors:
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Aims: We estimated associations between e‐cigarette prices (both disposable and refill) and e‐cigarette use among middle and high‐school students in the United States. We also estimated associations between cigarette prices and e‐cigarette use.Design: We used regression models to estimate the associations between e‐cigarette and cigarette prices and e‐cigarette use. In our regression models, we exploited changes in e‐cigarette and cigarette prices across four periods of time and across 50 markets. We report the associations as price elasticities. In our primary model, we controlled for socio‐demographic characteristics, cigarette prices, tobacco control policies, market fixed effects and year‐quarter fixed effects.Setting: United States of America.Participants: A total of 24 370 middle‐ and high‐school students participating in the Monitoring the Future Survey in years 2014 and 2015.Measurements: Self‐reported e‐cigarette use over the last 30 days. Average quarterly cigarette prices, e‐cigarette disposable prices and e‐cigarette refill prices were constructed from Nielsen retail data (inclusive of excise taxes) for 50 US markets.Findings: In a model with market fixed effects, we estimated that a 10% increase in e‐cigarette disposable prices is associated with a reduction in the number of days vaping among e‐cigarette users by approximately 9.7% [95% confidence interval (CI) = −17.7 to 1.8%; P = 0.02] and is associated with a reduction in the number of days vaping by the full sample by approximately 17.9% (95% CI = −31.5 to −4.2%; P = 0.01). Refill e‐cigarette prices were not statistically significant predictors of vaping. Cigarette prices were not associated significantly with e‐cigarette use regardless of the e‐cigarette price used. However, in a model without market fixed effects, cigarette prices were a statistically significant positive predictor of total e‐cigarette use.Conclusions: Higher e‐cigarette disposable prices appear to be associated with reduced e‐cigarette use among adolescents in the US.
Funding Information
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA01411)
  • National Cancer Institute (U01CA154248)

This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit: