Background And Aims: In Finland, nicotine pouches entered the national market abruptly in 2023, following a change in April 2023 from medicinal product classification into less regulated tobacco surrogate status. This study aimed to measure adolescent nicotine pouch use and associated characteristics.
Design And Setting: A cross-sectional, nationwide school-based survey among students in comprehensive schools (COMP), general upper secondary schools (GEN) and vocational institutes (VOC) in 2023 in Finland.
Participants: A total of 151 224 respondents aged 14-20 years (mean age 16.18 years, standard deviation 1.20 years).
Measurements: Nicotine pouch use was used as the outcome variable. Demographics included age, sex, school type and tobacco product use (smoking, snus use and e-cigarette use). Covariates included parental education and parental smoking. All measures were self-reported.
Findings: Unadjusted results showed that current nicotine pouch use was more common among boys (11.3%) than among girls (3.3%), adolescents in VOC (15.4%) compared with COMP (6.8%) and GEN (4.3%), whereas daily use of other tobacco and nicotine products was associated with current nicotine pouch use compared with never using such products and the association was especially strong for snus use. The fully adjusted estimates of current nicotine pouch use remained strong for daily use of other tobacco and nicotine products (snus use: adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] = 74.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 65.65-84.25; smoking: aPR = 1.43, 95% CI = 1.36-1.50; e-cigarette use: aPR = 2.15, 95% CI = 2.04-2.27) and for sex (boys aPR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.48-1.57). There was no clear evidence of differences in current nicotine pouch use by school type, age or parental factors in the fully adjusted model.
Conclusions: In Finland in 2023, during which the availability of nicotine pouches became less regulated, nicotine pouch use appeared to be more common among boys and adolescents who used other nicotine products.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/add.16585 | DOI Listing |
Nicotine Tob Res
January 2025
Faculty of Public Health & Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel St, London WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom.
Nicotine Tob Res
January 2025
Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia.
Introduction: Nicotine pouches are growing rapidly in popularity. These products have been found to contain high levels of nicotine, raising concerns about the risk of nicotine dependence and addiction. Preventing uptake of nicotine pouches, particularly among adolescents and younger adults, is thus important.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiagn Pathol
January 2025
Department of Biology and Microbiology, Riga Stradins University, Riga, Latvia.
Nicotine Tob Res
January 2025
Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies, Rutgers Health, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.
Introduction: Accurate measurement is critical for understanding the population health impact of nicotine pouches, yet precise, standardized measures of nicotine pouch use are lacking, possibly driving disparate prevalence estimates across studies. We implemented a split sample survey experiment to assess the impact of including a product image when asking about nicotine pouches.
Methods: We randomized an online sample of US adults ages 18-45 (N=2,130) recruited through the February 2023 wave of the Rutgers Omnibus Study to view either a text-only or text-plus-image description of oral nicotine pouches before being asked about awareness of the products.
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