September 2023 Andrea Leinberger-Jabari

Associate Professor Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Dr Nicola Lindson discuss the new evidence in e-cigarette research. Ailsa Butler interviews Andrea Leinberger-Jabari, Assistant Director for tobacco research at the Public Health Research Center at New York University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Andrea Leinberger-Jabari talks to Ailsa Butler at the Society for Nicotine and Tobacco Research- E annual conference held in London where Andrea was presenting a poster of her work. Andrea describes her study of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products in people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This is part of a larger cohort study at the Public Health Research Center called the UAE Healthy Futures study. Data is collected from Emirati adults residing in the UAE on tobacco use behaviors and, since becoming legal in 2019, on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco. The overall smoking rate is around 30% and men tend to smoke more than women. Of those who smoke combustible tobacco, over half smoke more than one type of combustible tobacco including cigarettes, shisha, pipe tobacco and Doha tobacco. Most e-cigarette users are people who already smoke combustible tobacco, are male, younger and college educated. The views on the perceived harm of e-cigarettes are mixed; people were unsure if they were more or less harmful than combustible tobacco. The top reasons for using e-cigarettes among people who use combustible tobacco, are that they might help them quit, that they are more acceptable than combustible cigarettes and they can be used in places where combustible cigarettes are banned. People not using combustible cigarettes use e-cigarettes out of curiosity and because they taste good. The EC market is new in the UAE and is growing rapidly, so continued monitoring of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco use in this emerging market will inform further policy and regulation The results of this study presented as a poster will be published soon.

This podcast is a companion to the electronic cigarettes Cochrane living systematic review and shares the evidence from the monthly searches.

Our literature searches carried out August 1st and September 1st 2023 identified one new (Rose 2023 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-023-06401-y), two linked (Przulj 2023 https://doi.org/10.3310/AGTH6901) (Kanobe 2023, https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics11070564) and one new ongoing study (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05960305).

For more information on the full Cochrane review updated in November 2022 see: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub7/...

Or our webpage: https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/research/electronic-cigarettes-for-smoking-ces...

This podcast is supported by Cancer Research UK.