The bad news is that the data from the Canadian Community Health Survey released by Statistics Canada earlier this week were incorrect. The good news is that the growth in vaping rates is lower than indicated by the data published on Wednesday.
Statistics Canada reached out earlier today to inform us that "the numbers cited in your message have actually been revised for the 2022 reference period. When we published yesterday, we had not known that there was an error in the coding of the indicator for past 30 day vaping/e-cigarette use. ... we have released the corrected numbers for 2022 (Health indicator statistics, annual estimates (statcan.gc.ca)), which show 1.7 million vapers or 5.7% of the adult population, rather than the numbers we had mistakenly published yesterday (1.3 million/4.8%)."The corrected figures are shown below:
The growth in the vaping population as measured by this survey between 2022 and 2023 was thus 168,700. We still do not know whether these individuals are people who used vaping to quit smoking, or whether vaping products are their introduction to nicotine use, or whether they both smoke and vape. Such tabulations are not difficult, but they require access to the data files (not currently available to non-University-based researchers).
Information on smoking status was readily available to the public when the Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey was in the field from late 2019 to early 2013. The last wave of that now-defunct survey found 240,100 more vapers in 2022-23 than in 2021-22. Of those, 206,900 (86%) were never smokers.
