Association of Electronic Cigarette Use With Smoking Habits, Demographic Factors, and Respiratory Symptoms

There is an ongoing debate about whether electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are the solution to the tobacco epidemic or a new public health threat. Large representative studies are needed to study e-cigarette use in the general population, but hardly any have been published. To estimate the prevalence of e-cigarette use and to investigate the association of e-cigarette use with smoking habits, demographic factors, and respiratory symptoms. Cross-sectional, population-based study of random samples of the population, performed within the Obstructive Lung Disease in Northern Sweden (OLIN) study and West Sweden Asthma Study (WSAS). The same validated questionnaire including identical questions was used in OLIN and WSAS. In 2016, OLIN and WSAS conducted postal questionnaire surveys in random samples of adults aged 20 to 75 years. In OLIN, 6519 participated (response rate, 56.4%); in WSAS, 23 753 participated (response rate, 50.1%). Electronic cigarette use, smoking habits, and respiratory symptoms. Of 30 272 participants (16 325 women [53.9%]), 3897 (12.9%) were aged 20 to 29 years; 4242 (14.0%), 30 to 39 years; 5082 (16.8%), 40 to 49 years; 6052 (20.0%), 50 to 59 years; 6628 (21.9%), 60 to 69 years; and 4371 (14.4%), 70 to 75 years. The number of current smokers was 3694 (12.3%), and 7305 (24.4%) were former smokers. The number of e-cigarette users was 529 (2.0%), and e-cigarette use was more common among men (275 of 12 347 [2.2%; 95% CI, 2.0%-2.5%]) than women (254 of 14 022 [1.8%; 95% CI, 1.6%-2.0%]). Among current smokers, 350 of 3566 (9.8%; 95% CI, 8.8%-10.8%) used e-cigarettes compared with 79 of 6875 (1.1%; 95% CI, 0.9%-1.3%) in former smokers and 96 of 15 832 (0.6%; 95% CI, 0.5%-0.7%) in nonsmokers (P