Start date: May 2025 | Expected completion date: May 2030 | Contact: Gareth Hollands
What do we want to know?
There is a recognised need to gain further understanding of potential health harms linked to the use of e-cigarettes, particularly among children and young people, given the recent rise in youth vaping and a growing literature documenting such harms. This research aims to support ongoing policy development processes in the United Kingdom that concern addressing potential harmful health impacts of the use of e-cigarettes and other non-tobacco Oral Nicotine Products.
Who wants to know?
Potential users include stakeholders involved in commissioning this research, but also those from wider government, policy, healthcare professional, and charitable sectors, who could benefit from surveillance of the evolving international evidence base and the ability to more efficiently establish an understanding and overview of the landscape of relevant research. For researchers, potential uses include supporting the efficient identification of evidence to be used in the conduct of systematic reviews or other evidence syntheses.
What is the research question?
What is the extent and nature of existing research that directly examines harmful health effects of e-cigarettes, as well as research that concerns cognate areas of trends in the use of these products, and interventions?
How will we answer this question?
We will answer the research question with a living evidence map, with its production being semi-automated (i.e. combining human and machine effort), with the intention to incrementally increase the degree of automation as far as is practicable.
We will, first, continually identify and classify the evolving international evidence base of research studies on the effects of e-cigarette and other non-tobacco oral nicotine product use on human health. Second, we will produce regular descriptive surveillance reports (termed ‘research digests’) over the duration of the project that describe how the evidence base is evolving, including identification of emerging phenomena and of evidence gaps.
