A school-based anti-vaping program will be rolled out nationally after a successful trial of more than 5000 young students.
The OurFutures Vaping program is set to be made available to Year 7 and 8 students in more than 3000 schools across the country.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the trial, involving students in NSW, Queensland and WA, showed that immediately after receiving the program, students had significantly reduced intentions to vape, as well as showing improved knowledge about the harms and risks associated with vaping.
“Over 8 in 10 students said the skills and information they learnt would help them deal more effectively with vaping situations in the future,” Mr Butler said.
He said vaping was endemic in Australian schools and had become the number one behavioural issue for many students, with data showing one in six high school students had vaped recently.
“Most concerningly, 12-year-olds who had vaped are 29 times more likely to go on to try smoking than 12-year-olds who had not vaped.”
Minister Butler said the OurFutures program. which was developed by experts and co-designed with educators and young people, put vaping education and intervention in reach of all students regardless of school resources.
“The program, based on the effective OurFutures prevention model, cuts through misinformation, using a comprehensive harm-minimisation and social influence approach to empower young people to avoid vaping.”
He said data from the trial also revealed a clear association between poor mental health and vaping among Australian students, with those experiencing severe depressive symptoms and/or high levels of stress being more than twice as likely to have vaped.
Schools can register their interest in the program on the OurFutures website.
