Let's talk e-cigarettes, March 2026

What this episode covers

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Nicola Lindson discuss emerging evidence in e-cigarette research and interview Dr Pamela Ling, University of California San Francisco. Associate Professor Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Associate Professor Nicola Lindson discuss the new evidence in e-cigarette research and interview Dr Pamela Ling, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco. In the March 2026 podcast Pamela Ling talks to Nicola Lindson about her newly published study that recruited approximately 500 13 to 21 year olds to test whether Instagram support groups can help people to quit vaping compared to referral to a quitline. This randomized clinical study was funded by the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Tobacco-Related Diseases Research Program and is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The intervention, Instagram direct message support groups, was delivered over 5 weeks and involved motivational interviewing, social support, skill building, and group quit attempts. The control group was referral to Quitline in California, the resources for this included telephone, online, texting or mobile app. Pam Ling’s study found that social media support groups were acceptable to adolescents and young adults and improved abstinence rates on average over 6 months compared to quitline referral. Pam Ling discusses the finding that social media platforms may be a useful way to deliver social supports for nicotine vaping cessation that is accessible and utilised by young people. This podcast is a companion to the electronic cigarettes Cochrane living systematic review and Interventions for quitting vaping review and shares the evidence from the monthly searches. Our searches for the EC for smoking cessation review carried out on 1st March 2026 found: 1 new (Papadosifaki et al, Archives Hellenic Medicine 2026;43(2):205-211) and 3 linked reports (10.1093/ntr/ntag038; 10.1093/sleep/zsag028; 10.1017/S1463423626100942). Our search for our interventions for quitting vaping review carried out on 1st March 2026 found: 1 new (discussed in this podcast 10.1016/j.amepre.2026.108314), 5 linked reports (10.1016/j.acap.2025.103181, 10.1038/s41386-024-02012-z, 10.1186/s40814-026-01782-1, 10.1016/S2468-2667(26)00021-6, 10.1016/S2468-2667(26)00020-4) and 2 new ongoing (ACTRN12626000031369 2026, NCT07392125 2026). For further details see our webpage under 'Monthly search findings': https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/research/electronic-cigarettes-for-smoking-cessation-cochrane-living-systematic-review-1 For more information on the full Cochrane review of E-cigarettes for smoking cessation updated in November 2025 see: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub10/full For more information on the full Cochrane review of Interventions for quitting vaping published in November 2025 see: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD016058.pub3/full This podcast is supported by Cancer Research UK.

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