An Australian-first research project which aims to deeply understand teenagers’ experiences with vaping has revealed that parents hold more power and influence in tackling vaping than they might realise.
The Influencing Gen Vape research, led by The Behaviour Change Collaborative in partnership with VicHealth, involved surveys and in-depth conversations with over 3,500 teenagers across Australia.
The results have been used to create Talking to your teen about vaping, an evidence-informed conversation guide for parents and carers. The guide helps decode a teenager’s motivations, attitudes and behaviours towards vaping, and understand what messages resonate most.
The BCC’s Managing Director Luke van der Beeke said it was important to not just think of young people as either ‘vapers’ or ‘non-vapers’.
“Our research shows it’s more nuanced than that, so our approach to addressing the issue needs to be more nuanced too.
“For example, the teenager who is curious but hasn’t tried vaping needs a different conversation and different information to the teen who is experimenting or the one who is addicted,” he said.
Dr Sandro Demaio, VicHealth CEO, said it was a welcome finding from the research to see that teenagers really trust their parents and value their opinions.
“Many parents and carers say they feel powerless when it comes to vaping, which is completely understandable.
“So, it was interesting and exciting to find that most teenagers, including those who vape, genuinely care what their parents think.
“We’re proud to partner with The Behaviour Change Collaborative on this groundbreaking project, and to start sharing the important findings with those working to positively influence teens’ attitudes and behaviours towards vaping,” Dr Demaio said.
The goal of the research, and the partnership more broadly, is for learnings to support local communities to craft health promotion interventions and messaging that will positively influence teens’ attitudes and behaviours towards vaping.
The Behaviour Change Collaborative (The BCC) and VicHealth have joined forces on a major research project to explore teen vaping across Australia.
The project builds on The BCC’s Healthway funded Being Gen Vape research which provided insights into existing vaping attitudes, motivations and behaviours, and a preliminary model for the segmentation of teen vaping behaviour.
The value of quantification is not solely in establishing vaping prevalence but in the ability to profile each segment by motivation (need) and attitudes, behavioural patterns, and trajectory to addiction. This will help to identify whether targeted interventions should be prevention based or cessation based, and for whom.
“We’re pleased to be partnering with VicHealth on such an important public health issue,” said The BCC’s founder and managing director, Luke van der Beeke.
The intent of the research is to provide outputs that help interested parties to set policy and intervention priorities, strategy directions, and intervention activities. We want to contribute to a coordinated, evidence-informed approach to addressing teen vaping. The findings of the research will be delivered in a user-friendly and fit-for-purpose format that can be shared widely across sectors.
“This piece of work is intended to augment existing research projects and activities. Our focus is on the delivery of behaviourally informed findings that can be picked up and used to inform future practice,” Mr van der Beeke said.
Our earlier research clearly indicates that mass reach single-theme messaging will have limited impact with respect to breadth and scale, because of the clear existence of different attitudinal and behavioural teen vaping segments.
This research will help to direct communications content, so that it focused on the right motivation and persuasive message and can be targeted at the right group.
“We’re looking forward to generating findings that can be picked up and used by governments, NGO’s, and other stakeholders to inform health communications campaigns, as well as multi-lever health promotion and social marketing strategies,” Mr van der Beeke said.
If you’re a high school teacher, or the parent of a child in high school and you would like to get involved with this research, please email hello@thebcc.org.au
The Behaviour Change Collaborative was contacted by ABC Mornings for an interview about our Being Gen Vape research following news of increased calls to help lines from teens struggling with vaping.
The interview with Luke van der Beeke is available in full below.
Eddie Williams interview with Luke van der Beeke (MP3)
by ABC Mornings Pilbara and Kimberley 16 November, 2022
If you’re a parent and keen to know more about our research on teen vaping and what teens think adults need to know you may be interested in our upcoming parent information webinar.
