Many schools began to see an increase in vaping a few years ago, but many did not have accurate information about use on campus.
At the University of Arizona, for example, Campus Health first asked about e-cigarette use in a 2016 health and wellness survey and saw rates of about 6.3%. The following year, staff updated the question to include other names for devices, such as JUUL, and verbs such as “vape,” and saw that about 24% of students were using e-cigarette devices within the last 30 days. The takeaway: there are a variety of terms that young people use to refer to vaping and using e-cigarettes. Schools should make sure survey efforts are capturing the right data by using a variety of terms.
Another approach is to survey at a campus health or wellness center. At SUNY Sullivan, a Truth Initiative Tobacco-Free College Program grantee, the school nurse is now implementing a questionnaire to ask about e-cigarette use so that counseling can be provided during regular wellness visits.