Researchers using PATH Study data are first to show that exposure to e-cigarette emissions--even second-hand exposure--can worsen mental health

In their article out this month in BMC Public Health, authors Farrell et al. test the hypothesis that second-hand exposure to emissions from the use of e-cigarettes–or vaping–is associated with increased odds of mental health disorders. They conducted a secondary analysis of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study [United States] Public-Use Files (ICPSR 36498), an ongoing, multi-wave longitudinal cohort study that contains a national sample of adult and youth tobacco users and non-users, and is meant for monitoring the US population’s tobacco use behavior, attitudes and beliefs, and tobacco-related health outcomes. Farrell et al. analyzed data collected from a sample of 16,173 adults in Wave 4 of the PATH Study (December 2016–January 2018), placing respondents into nine categories of tobacco use and tobacco exposure. With a validated diagnostic screening tool, respondents also were assessed for mental health problems. Farrell et al. then used adjusted weighted logistic regression analysis to investigate the association between exposure type and mental health. Their study is the first one known to have found an association between recent second-hand exposure to e-cigarette emissions and mental health problems like depression and anxiety, and that the risk is comparable to second-hand exposure to cigarette smoke. Although the authors encourage further studies to corroborate their findings, given existing research showing that non-smokers exposed to substantial second-hand cigarette smoke “are nearly 50% more likely to experience psychological distress,” the implications are serious. Of further concern is that even when controlling for characteristics such as sex, race/ethnicity, age, chronic health conditions, annual income, and BMI, which are known to be highly associated with internalizing mental health problems, “every category of tobacco product use or exposure [that the authors] assessed was associated significantly with an increased likelihood of mental health problems.”

A collaboration between the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the PATH Study series is distributed by the National Addiction & HIV Data Archive Program. Hundreds of links to other publications using public-use, restricted-use, and biomarker data from the series can be found here.