It is unclear whether use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) precedes cigarette smoking initiation, relapse, and/or quitting. Healthcare systems with electronic health records (EHRs) provide unique data to examine ENDS use and changes in smoking. We examined the incidence of ENDS use (2012-2015) based on clinician documentation and tested whether EHR documented ENDS use is associated with twelve-month changes in patient smoking status using a matched retrospective cohort design. The sample was Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) patients aged ≥12 with documented ENDS use (N = 7926); 57% were current smokers, 35% former smokers, and 8% never-smokers. ENDS documentation incidence peaked in 2014 for current and former smokers and in 2015 for never-smokers. We matched patients with documented ENDS use to KPNC patients without documented ENDS use (N = 7926) on age, sex, race/ethnicity, and smoking status. Documented ENDS use predicted the likelihood of smoking in the following year. Among current smokers, ENDS use was associated with greater odds of quitting smoking (OR = 1.17, 95%CI = 1.05-1.31). Among former smokers, ENDS use was associated with greater odds of smoking relapse (OR = 1.53, 95%CI = 1.22-1.92). Among never-smokers, ENDS use was associated with greater odds of initiating smoking (OR = 7.41, 95%CI = 3.14-17.5). The overall number of current smokers at 12 months was slightly higher among patients with (N = 3931) versus without (N = 3850) documented ENDS use. Results support both potential harm reduction of ENDS use (quitting combustibles among current smokers) and potential for harm (relapse to combustibles among former smokers, initiation for never-smokers).

This study examined nicotine and cannabis vaping among adolescents in treatment for substance use disorders. Participants were 363 adolescents aged 12-17 (66% male, mean age = 15.5 [SD = 1.3], 46% non-Hispanic white) seen for a specialty addiction intake evaluation between 2017 and 2019 at one of six medical offices of a large, integrated health care system in Northern California. Multivariable logistic regression models tested for associations of sociodemographics, cigarette smoking, and substance use disorders with vaping behaviors. A majority of adolescents reported ever (68%) or current vaping (60%) of nicotine and/or cannabis; current vaping was similar for nicotine (50%) and cannabis (51%); 40% reported current vaping of both. Current smokers (6% of the sample) had higher odds of ever vaping (aOR = 3.95, 95%CI: 1.04-14.95). Black (versus non-Hispanic white) adolescents had lower odds of current nicotine vaping (aOR = 0.08, 95%CI: 0.02-0.37) and current vaping of both nicotine and cannabis (aOR = 0.12, 95%CI: 0.03-0.60). Having an alcohol use disorder was associated with current vaping (aOR = 2.14, 95%CI: 1.06-4.33). Those who endorsed that most friends get drunk/high (aOR = 1.87, 95%CI: 1.02-3.42) or that cannabis was their substance of choice (aOR = 2.36, 95%CI: 1.16-4.81) had higher odds of current cannabis vaping. Higher neighborhood household income ($80,000-$120,000 and >$120,000 vs. <$80,000, aORs = 2.05-9.48), never versus ever blunt use (aORs = 2.47-8.68), and intakes in 2018 and 2019 versus 2017 (aORs = 2.18-5.38) were associated with higher odds of all vaping outcomes. Vaping was common among adolescents in addiction treatment and varied with sociodemographics and substance-related factors. Research should assess how vaping impacts the development of substance use disorders and whether it interferes with addiction treatment.

Use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) has increased substantially over the past decade. However, unlike smoking, which is systematically captured by clinicians through routine screening and discrete documentation fields in the electronic health record (EHR), unknown is the extent to which clinicians are documenting patients' use of ENDS. Data were gathered from medical visits with patients aged 12 and older (N=9,119; 55% male) treated in a large, integrated healthcare system. We used natural language processing to assess the incidence rates of clinician documentation of patients' ENDS use in unstructured tobacco comments in the EHR, and the words most frequently documented in relation to ENDS, from 2006-2015. ENDS documentation in the EHR increased dramatically over time (from 0.01 to 9.5 per 10,000 patients, p<0.0001), particularly among adults aged 18-24 and 25-44. Most prevalent were "e-cig," "electronic cigarettes", and "vape," with much variation in spelling and phrasing of these words. Records of adolescent and young adult patients were more likely to contain the word "vape", and less likely to have "e-cig" and "electronic cigarette" than records of adults (ps<0.0001). The relatively low observed number of patients with ENDS terms in the EHR suggested vast under documentation. While healthcare providers are increasingly documenting patients' use of ENDS in the EHR, overall documentation rates remain low. Discrete EHR fields for standard screening and documentation of ENDS that reflect the language used by patients would provide more complete longitudinal population-level surveillance of ENDS use and its association with short- and long-term health outcomes.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) promised to narrow smoking disparities by expanding access to healthcare and mandating comprehensive coverage for tobacco treatment starting in 2014. We examined whether two years after ACA implementation disparities in receiving clinician advice to quit and smokers' knowledge and use of treatment resources remained. We conducted telephone interviews in 2016 with a stratified random sample of self-reported smokers newly enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California's (KPNC) integrated healthcare delivery system in 2014 (N = 491; 50% female; 53% non-white; 6% Spanish language). We used Poisson regression with robust standard errors to test whether sociodemographics, insurance type, comorbidities, smoking status in 2016 (former, light/nondaily [<5 cigarettes per day], daily), and preferred language (English or Spanish) were associated with receiving clinician advice to quit and knowledge and use of tobacco treatment. We included an interaction between smoking status and language to test whether the relation between smoking status and key outcomes varied with preferred language. Overall, 80% of respondents received clinician advice to quit, 84% knew that KPNC offers cessation counseling, 54% knew that cessation pharmacotherapy is free, 54% used pharmacotherapy, and 6% used counseling. In multivariate models, Spanish-speaking light/nondaily smokers had significantly lower rates of all outcomes, while there was no association with other demographic and clinical characteristics. Following ACA implementation, most smokers newly enrolled in KPNC received clinician advice to quit and over half used pharmacotherapy, yet counseling utilization was low. Spanish-language outreach efforts and treatment services are recommended, particularly for adults who are light/nondaily smokers.