ArticleBMC public health2022
Impact of the Food and Drug Administration enforcement policy on flavored e-cigarettes on the online popularity of disposable e-cigarettes: analyses of Google search query data.
Article in BMC public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Electronic cigarette use, related health outcomes and policy interventions in the USA: a call for research to fill evidence gaps.Tobacco control · 2026Review
- Public health impact of disposable electronic cigarettes since 2021: a scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Detection of Metal-Containing Particles in FDA-Authorized and New Disposable Electronic Cigarette Aerosols.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Factors associated with disposable electronic cigarette use among US youth: A national repeated cross-sectional study, 2021-22.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Observational
- Spatiotemporal Characteristics and Influential Factors of Electronic Cigarette Web-Based Attention in Mainland China: Time Series Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Observational
- Examining Quitting Experiences on Quit Vaping Subreddits From 2015 to 2021: Content Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Comprehensive review of the national surveys that assess E-cigarette use domains among youth and adults in the United States.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2023Review
- What does Google Trends reveal about the proportion of waterpipe users in the Brazilian population?Epidemiologia e servicos de saude : revista do Sistema Unico de Saude do Brasil · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe impact of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) initial enforcement policy on flavored cartridge-based e-cigarettes and subsequent notice for the removal of flavored disposable electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) such as Puff Bar from the market has not been well evaluated. We, therefore, sought to examine the impact of the e-cigarette flavor-related policy changes on the online popularity of Puff Bar, a prototypic disposable e-cigarette.
methodsWe tabulated the total weekly Google search queries originating from the U.S. for "Puff Bar" and "Puff Bars" from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2021. We divided the three years into four (4) distinct periods using the dates of the initial announcement to ban non-tobacco flavored e-cigarettes (September 11, 2019), the finalization of the FDA enforcement policy on cartridge-based flavors (January 2, 2020), and the notice for the market withdrawal of flavored disposable e-cigarettes (July 20, 2020) as reference time points. Then, we used piecewise linear regression and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) to compare the trends in searches for Puff Bar for the four (4) periods.
resultsBefore the initial announcement to ban non-tobacco flavored e-cigarettes, online search queries (per 10 million Google searches) for Puff Bar were slowly rising at a rate of 0.58 queries per week (95%CI: -0.80 - 1.97). Following the announcement, searches for Puff Bar increased significantly at a rate of 16.61 queries per week (95%CI: 12.13 - 21.10). The rate of searches for Puff Bar then increased exponentially at 40.08 queries per week (95%CI: 27.32 - 52.84) following the FDA flavor ban, which excluded disposable e-cigarettes. Then, the rate of increase declined but remained relatively stable at 3.67 queries per week (95%CI: 0.69-6.65) until the FDA's notice to remove flavored Puff Bar products from the market. Following this notice, the rate of searches for Puff Bar significantly declined (rate: -4.97 queries per week; 95%CI: -5.40--4.54).
conclusionsThe tracking of online search data demonstrates rapid public recognition of the FDA's announcements of tobacco regulatory actions.
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