Youth Vaping Prevention Public Education

The Government of Canada remains concerned with the increase in vaping among Canadian youth. To this end, Health Canada has invested more than $12 million over 3 years (2017–2020) to develop and implement a national public education campaign—Consider the Consequences of Vaping. Of this amount, since April 2019, more than $9.5 million was invested to ramp up the campaign to dissuade youth from vaping.

Helping Make Youth Aware of the Risks of Vaping

In December 2018, Health Canada launched a youth vaping prevention campaign to reach youth (13 to 18 years of age), parents, trusted adults and educators.

The campaign aims to prevent youth uptake of vaping by:

•  educating youth about the harms and risks associated with using vaping products;
•  providing parents, adults and educators with resources to support conversations with youth about vaping; and
•  increasing awareness of where to get more information on vaping.

Consider the Consequences of Vaping Campaign

The Consider the Consequences of Vaping campaign has used a variety of tactics to reach youth and parents, including paid advertising, interactive learning events, the use of digital influencers, partnership activities and web resources, such as videos and a parent tip sheet.

An evaluation of the advertising campaign found that 26% of teens who reported having seen the ads decided not to vape as a result of the ads.

Launched in February 2019, the interactive learning events have provided students with an engaging and educational way to learn about the health risks associated with vaping. The tour has travelled to more than 344 high schools and middle schools, and 22 teen-oriented community events across Canada. More than 128,165 teens have taken part in the tour so far. Health Canada is exploring how best to resume reaching youth through schools in the upcoming academic year.

Youth and parent influencers on social media worked with Health Canada to create and promote unique content to discourage teen vaping on their digital channels between March 2019 and March 2020. More than 165 posts garnered more than 5 million impressions with an overall engagement rate of 3.26%.

Health Canada undertook a partnership with the Canadian Paediatric Society to adapt a parent tip sheet into a co-branded brochure, which was distributed to pediatricians across the country in July 2019. Building on this partnership, a co‑branded poster encouraging parents to talk with their teens about vaping was produced for use in the offices of health professionals.

Teen vaping prevention materials have been mailed to more than 15,000 health professionals and 12,000 middle schools and high schools to help broaden the reach of the campaign’s messages.

Teachers and students can access interactive activities online to get the facts about vaping and to know the risks.