Vapor’s message a struggle

Forty-three percent of adults in Great Britain believe that vaping is less harmful than smoking, according to the results of a survey carried out by YouGov on behalf of the British online vaping retailer Electric Tobacconist.

The survey was carried out amongst 2,134 adults who were asked for their perceptions about e-cigarettes. Respondents were advised that ‘smoking’ included all products that used burning tobacco, such as cigarettes, pipes and cigars, while vaping meant inhaling vapor from electronic cigarettes and other devices, including vaporizers.

Asked if they thought vaping was generally better for people’s health than smoking was, 43 percent of respondents said yes, while five percent held the view that vaping was worse for people’s health than smoking was.

Thirty-one percent said they believed that vaping and smoking had the same impact on people’s health, while 21 percent of respondents said they did not know whether vaping was better or worse than smoking.

More men (46 percent) than women (41 percent) agreed that using e-cigarettes was less harmful than was smoking.

Roughly half of those who had been active on various social media channels in the past month said vaping was less harmful than was smoking (46 percent Facebook, 49 percent Twitter and 52 percent LinkedIn), while under 30 percent of those who believed vaping had the same health impact as smoking had used social media in the past month (29 percent Facebook, 25 percent Twitter and 26 percent LinkedIn).

Fieldwork for the survey, which was carried out online, was undertaken on January 18 and 19.

The figures have been weighted and are representative of all British adults aged 18+.