Convergence of Media Coverage and Anti-Vaping Campaigns Sparked Dramatic Decline in United States Youth Vaping Trends

UC San Diego study finds that news coverage of EVALI and anti-vaping ads nearly doubled quit attempts among teens, marking a 2019 turning point in vaping rates.

By: AXL Media

Published: Apr 25, 2026, 4:28 AM EDT

Source: Information for this report was sourced from University of California - San Diego

A Decisive Inflection Point in Adolescent Public Health

Researchers at the University of California San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health have identified 2019 as a critical turning point for youth vaping in the United States. Following a period where adolescent e-cigarette use surged to a peak of 20%, the population-level behavior shifted toward a sustained decline. This transformation coincided with two powerful media forces: high-budget anti-vaping campaigns and a wave of frightening news reports concerning a mysterious lung-injury outbreak. Senior author Shu-Hong Zhu noted that this convergence appeared to shake adolescents out of complacency, providing the necessary motivation for many to attempt quitting for the first time.

The Impact of the EVALI Lung Injury Crisis

The outbreak of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury, commonly known as EVALI, played a central role in altering teen perceptions of risk. Linked to over 2,800 hospitalizations and 68 deaths, the crisis was heavily documented by news organizations, with nearly 20,000 related articles appearing online within an eight month window. Because the specific cause of the injuries was not immediately identified, the media framing initially targeted vaping in broad terms. This created a sense of urgency and fear that proved more effective at discouraging new users than traditional advertising, reaching a massive audience at no direct cost to public health agencies.

Quantifying the Shift in Teenage Vaping Intentions

To measure this shift, the research team analyzed data from the California Student Tobacco Survey, comparing responses from over 260,000 students across two biennial cycles. The results revealed that the proportion of current vapers who tried to quit in the past year jumped from 28.8% to 53.2% between the 2017-18 and 2019-20 periods. Furthermore, intentions to quit rose from 56.9% to nearly 80%. These figures represent a rare and dramatic change in population-level behavior, suggesting that the combination of social marketing and organic news coverage created a high-pressure environment that made vaping appear significantly less socially and physically desirable.