E-cigarettes, health inequalities and smoking cessation: a community study of take-up and market evolution in two high smoking prevalence areas of the North of England

This research was funded by Cancer Research UK to help determine whether smokers in deprived areas are managing to quit smoking using e-cigarettes. I talked to smokers and quitters about e-cigarettes. I talked to vape shop staff about the products they offer their customers, particularly those with little money to spend on e-cigarettes and liquids.

I found that many people were motivated to switch from smoking to vaping to save money rather than for health reasons. Few people were worried about whether vaping might be dangerous, but many wanted to stop being ‘addicted’ to nicotine, so they put a lot of effort into reducing the nicotine strength of their e-cigarette or vaping device. Many people also avoided sweet or fruity flavours for their e-liquids as they didn’t want to be associated with ‘recreational’ vaping. They preferred to think of their e-cigarette use as a practical tool to stop smoking, rather than a pleasurable activity. Participants went to great lengths to vape as cheaply as possible, including travelling long distances to buy cheaper liquids.

I used social science theory to help my thinking. The way addiction was a moral problem for many smokers and vapers relates to the work of philosopher Owen Flanagan. The fact that nicotine users minimised costs by buying the cheapest tobacco, or the cheapest e-liquids if they switched to vaping, harks back to the work of anthropologist Daniel Miller, who sees everyday shopping as an expression of kinship (family), with thrift (saving money) as the central expression of this relationship. Building on the work of theoreticians including Pierre Bourdieu, I suggested that middle-class vapers were less likely to be worried about addiction because they were more concerned about health. I concluded that many ordinary smokers switch from smoking to vaping mainly because it’s cheaper, so it’s important to keep the price of vaping substantially lower than smoking, which is currently the case in the UK but not globally.

I also looked at the vape industry. I found that vaping continues to evolve as a disputed cultural category, and that the classificatory struggle over its symbolic meaning involves contrasting players within the industry as well as consumers themselves. This work is not yet published, but you can check back for updates here.

Read my findings

Read my short blog about this research