ArticleAmerican journal of public health2019
The E-Cigarette Debate: What Counts as Evidence?
Article in American journal of public health, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Smoking cessation and harm reduction: a systematic overview of ongoing, randomized controlled trials.BMC psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Clinical testing of the cardiovascular effects of e-cigarette substitution for smoking: a living systematic review.Internal and emergency medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Association between electronic cigarette use and tobacco cigarette smoking initiation in adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2021Pooled it
- Effects of brief exposure to misinformation about e-cigarette harms on twitter: a randomised controlled experiment.BMJ open · 2021Trial
- Human Primary Mesenchymal Stem Cells Fail to Recover Full Osteogenic Differentiation Potential Following Washout of Electronic Cigarette Aerosol Extracts.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2026Article
- Support for banning sale of smoked tobacco products among adults who smoke: findings from the International Tobacco Control Four Country Smoking and Vaping Surveys (2018-2022).Tobacco control · 2025Article
- Potential determinant factors of electronic cigarette regulation in Nigeria: qualitative interview of potential regulators.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Nicotine-Cannabis Transitions and Nicotine Abstinence Among United States Adults.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Comparison Between Smoked Tobacco and Medical Cannabis Cigarettes Concerning Particulate Matter.Cannabis and cannabinoid research · 2024Article
- Acute exposure to electronic cigarette components alters mRNA expression of pre-osteoblasts.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2024Article
- Multistate transition modelling of e-cigarette use and cigarette smoking among youth in the UK.Tobacco control · 2024Article
- Perceiving E-Cigarettes as Safe and Safer Alternative to Cigarettes Among Young Adults.Substance use & addiction journal · 2024Article
- Article
- Tobacco Industry Engagement in the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee E-Cigarettes Inquiry.International journal of health policy and management · 2024Article
- Terms tobacco users employ to describe e-cigarette aerosol.Tobacco control · 2023Article
- Influence of Disclosed and Undisclosed Funding Sources in Tobacco Harm Reduction Discourse: A Social Network Analysis.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2023Review
- The smoking and vaping model, A user-friendly model for examining the country-specific impact of nicotine VAPING product use: application to Germany.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Exploring electronic cigarette portrayals: a content and thematic analysis of African online news coverage.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2023Article
- Differentiating Reasons for Young Adult E-cigarette Use Using Maximum Difference Choice Models.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2023Article
- Vaping among Norwegians who smoke or formerly smoked: reasons, patterns of use, and smoking cessation activity.Harm reduction journal · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Two major public health evaluations of e-cigarettes-one from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), the other from Public Health England (PHE)-were issued back to back in the winter of 2018. While some have read these analyses as broadly consistent, providing support for the view that e-cigarettes could play a role in smoking harm reduction, in every major respect, they come to very different conclusions about what the evidence suggests in terms of public health policy. How is that possible? The explanation rests in what the 2 reports see as the central challenge posed by e-cigarettes, which helped to determine what counted as evidence. For NASEM, the core question was how to protect nonsmokers from the potential risks of exposure to nicotine and other contaminants or from the risk of smoking combustible cigarettes through renormalization. A precautionary standard was imperative, making evidence that could speak most conclusively to the question of causality paramount. For PHE, the priority was how to reduce the burdens now borne by current smokers, burdens reflected in measurable patterns of morbidity and mortality. With a focus on immediate harms, PHE turned to evidence that was "relevant and meaningful." Thus, competing priorities determined what counted as evidence when it came to the impact of e-cigarettes on current smokers, nonsmoking bystanders, and children and adolescents. A new clinical trial demonstrating the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a cessation tool makes understanding how values and framing shape core questions and conclusive evidence imperative.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.