London Borough of Newham – Response to Youth Vaping Case Study

London Borough of Newham – Response to Youth Vaping Case Study

The case study provides an overview of Newham’s whole-system, co-production approach to the development and delivery of a young people action plan on smoking and vaping.

The plan aims to prevent young people aged 12 to 17 from smoking and vaping using evidence-based knowledge whilst providing cessation support to those who have already started.

How did Newham deal with youth vaping?

In February 2022, Newham’s public health team was contacted by head teachers about an observed increase in vaping among young people in schools and the impact it was having on their health and wellbeing.

Reports from schools and designated safeguarding leads (DSLs) across East London included concerns about vaping devices being modified to deliver other substances such as THC. They also reported links between vaping and exploitation and possible addictive behaviour.

At the time, very little data was available nationally or locally of the prevalence and potential health risks to young people of vaping. However, the guidance was clear, nicotine vaping is less harmful than smoking for adults but is not risk free for children and young people.

Newham’s Survey of Health Related Behaviour, published in Spring 2022 provided some indication of vape use among children. Of 1,014 children in Year 6 who completed the survey, 50 (4percent) had tried vapes. In June 2022, ASH published its national youth vaping survey.

Vaping among children aged 11-17 years old had risen from 4% in 2020 to 7% in 2022. Their most recent data finds that 20.3% of children have tried vaping.

Newham’s Trading Standards team also reported incidents of underage sales of vape products and the sale of counterfeit and non-compliant vapes which are harmful to health.

Collaborating with local authorities

Partners organisations, including Trading Standards, DSLs, Youth Safety, Early Years, Child Health, Schools, NHS and community organisations, wanted to work together to better understand what they were seeing on the ground and how they could work as a system to prevent harm.

This prompted Newham’s Public Health Team to launch a Smoking, Vaping and Young People Task and Finish Group with the aim of developing an action plan to prevent young people aged 12 to 17 from smoking and vaping whilst providing cessation support to those who have already started.

The group adopted a co-production approach to ensure that the knowledge and expertise of young people would help define key actions that were meaningful and relevant to them.

Steps to tackling vaping among young people in Newham

Applying the NICE framework for Tobacco, the action plan focuses on 4 areas:

1.    Collect and monitor data to better understand the prevalence of vaping among young people, reasons for vaping and reportable vaping related harm and behaviour

2.    Identify and implement strategies to prevent the uptake of smoking and vaping, and vaping and drug taking.

3.    Promote support to quit smoking, vaping, as well as vaping and drug taking.

4.    Strengthen pathways into specialist services to support young people to quit smoking, vaping and drug taking.

The impact on Newham communities

The action plan was agreed and presented to Newham’s Health and Wellbeing Board in October 2023. The following actions have already been delivered by partners:

1.    A Vaping Factsheet has been published via a new webpage aimed at tackling misinformation about vapes and promoting support to young people in Newham.

2.    With the help of the Headstart Youth Panel and a local PRU, young people have participated in persona workshops to help us understand factors which encourage uptake of vaping and what would a help young person to quit.

3.    Trading Standards have developed a business card to make it easier for schools to report underage vape sales and help inform more targeted enforcement activities. They have seized over £135,000 of illicit counterfeit vapes and tobacco products since January 2024.

4.    A Smoking and Vaping Healthy Schools Toolkit is being piloted by three schools in Newham with the aim of preventing uptake of smoking and vaping and support pupils and staff into cessation services.

5.    Opportunities have been identified to collect data to help inform knowledge about young people and vaping. This includes the monitoring of local NHS A&E attendances where vape, vaping, e-cigarette, or e-cig was mentioned and the recording of vape related referrals to Newham MASH.

For further information on young people and vaping in Newham, visit https://www.wellnewham.org.uk/advice/young-people-and-vaping 

For more information on vaping, visit https://stopsmokinglondon.com/guides/vaping-myths-stop-smoking-london/