🌅 Teen Girls Vape More than Teen Boys

SOURCE

Sanford et al. (2026)

WHAT TO KNOW

• A new study by researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina found teen girls in the U.S. have been vaping nicotine at higher rates than boys since 2021. The gender gap is particularly pronounced among girls ages 15 to 17, among whom the share that reported regularly vaping rose from 4.9% in 2021 to 7.8% in 2024. By comparison, 4.6% of similarly aged boys were regular users in 2024, a slight uptick from 4.2% in 2021.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Historically, nicotine use has been much more common among boys and men, a pattern the researchers found held true from 2014 to 2018. However, a dramatic surge in youth vaping in 2018 and 2019 saw rates climb sharply among both boys (8.5% reported regularly vaping in 2019, up from 3.1% in 2015) and girls (8.2% in 2019, up from 1.9% in 2015), eliminating the longstanding gender gap. The authors noted the rise in youth vaping coincided with the emergence of a new generation of small, pod-based e-cigarettes (e.g., JUULs) that made vaping easier, more appealing, and more discreet.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• In another historic shift, 2024 was also the first year cannabis use was higher among teen girls than teen boys. The shift among teens followed a similar change in 2023 among adult women ages 19 to 30, who, for the first time ever, reported a higher prevalence of cannabis use than men of the same age. The rise in youth cannabis use and nicotine vaping has also coincided with a dramatic decline in youth cigarette smoking, which reached an all-time low of 1.4% among high school and middle school students in 2025.