Use of e-cigarettes among school-age children in Britain has remained steady over the past two years with a quarter of students having used the devices, according to a survey from the National Health Service published Tuesday.
They remain more popular that traditional cigarettes, with 16 percent of the 13,000 students surveyed during 2018 saying they have tried regular smoking.
The survey, which assessed habits of children aged 11-15, indicates the popularity of vaping remains stable. The previous 2016 survey recorded the same 25 percent figure, up from 22 percent in 2014, when questions about electronic cigarettes were first included in the survey.
“This provides reassurance that our regulations are working and vaping has not become the super-cool phenomenon among young people in England that it is said to be in the USA,” wrote Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), in a statement.
When asked about attitudes to e-cigarettes, more than a third of those polled said they think its OK for people their age to try an electronic cigarette to “see what its like.”
Smoking regular cigarettes is on the decline, down 3 percentage points from 2016.
In a separate
