Health Risks of Vaping: Lessons From the Battle With Big Tobacco

November 16, 2020
Has lesson plan

Like cigarette manufacturers decades ago, e-cigarette makers have pitched their products as fun and safe. But nobody knows what the risks are.

E-cigarettes have been marketed for years as a cigarette substitute. But just how safe or useful they are is a debate taking on new urgency as scientists race to determine whether vaping may increase the severity of Covid-19. To understand e-cigarettes, Retro Report looks back to a time decades ago, when tobacco marketing fueled a health crisis of its own.

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For teachers
  • Producer: Kit R. Roane
  • Editor: Flora Guillon
  • Editor: Heru Muharrar
  • Editor: Cullen Golden
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For Educators

Subjects
Civics & Government Media and News Literacy
Topics
Economics Health
Introduction

When e-cigarettes came on the U.S. market in 2006, they were sold as a support for adult smokers who were trying to quit. These vaping products delivered nicotine to the user without some of the harmful chemicals found in tobacco cigarettes. However, since then, e-cigarettes have become customizable devices that can deliver a range of illicit drugs in many different flavors, and they’re being marketed to America’s youth.

Teenagers today are more likely to use vaping devices than traditional tobacco cigarettes when they start smoking. Data from the National Institutes of Health show the same trends: the rates of cigarette use among 12th grade students dropped from 36.5 percent in 1997 to 7.6 percent in 2018, while rates of the use of vaping products grew from 16.3 percent in 2016 to 26.7 percent just two years later.

Lesson Plan 1: Health Risks of Vaping
Health Risks of Vaping
Health Risks of Vaping
Overview
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Students will learn that like cigarette manufacturers decades ago, e-cigarette makers have pitched their products as fun and safe. But nobody knows what the risks of vaping are.

Objectives
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Students will:
  • Apply mathematical understandings about slope, linear relationships, functions, and percentages to Interpret graphical and statistical information about teenage use of vaping products and marketing dollars spent.
  • Examine the role of economics and marketing in public health decisions.
  • Identify actions that different stakeholders (e.g. the federal government, healthcare professionals, parents and caregivers, etc.) could take to support the health of teenagers.
Essential questions
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  • Is teenagers’ use of vaping products a problem? Why or why not?
  • How should companies that make vaping devices market their products?
  • What actions should governments, healthcare professionals and community stakeholders take to support the health of teenagers?
Additional resources
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Transcript for “Health Risks of Vaping: Lessons From the Battle With Big Tobacco” (Retro Report)

Standards
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Common Core Math Standards

  • 6.RP.3 Use ratio and rate reasoning to solve real-world and mathematical problems, e.g., by reasoning about tables of equivalent ratios, tape diagrams, double number line diagrams, or equations.
  • 7.RP.3 Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems. Examples: simple interest, tax, markups and markdowns, gratuities and commissions, fees, percent increase and decrease, percent error.
  • HSS.ID.C.7 Interpret the slope (rate of change) and the intercept (constant term) of a linear model in the context of the data.
  • HSS.ID.C.9 Distinguish between correlation and causation.

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies

  • D2.Eco.1.6-8. Explain how economic decisions affect the well-being of individuals, businesses, and society.
  • D2.Eco.1.9-12. Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups. 
  • D2.Civ.1.6-8. Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media in a variety of governmental and nongovernmental contexts.
  • D2.Civ.1.9-12. Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of local, state, tribal, national, and international civic and political institutions.
  • D2.Civ.7.6-8. Apply civic virtues and democratic principles in school and community settings.
  • D2.Civ.7.9-12. Apply civic virtues and democratic principles when working with others.
  • D4.3.6-8. Present adaptations of arguments and explanations on topics of interest to others to reach audiences and venues outside the classroom using print and oral technologies (e.g., posters, essays, letters, debates, speeches, reports, and maps) and digital technologies (e.g., Internet, social media, and digital documentary).
  • D4.3.9-12. Present adaptations of arguments and explanations that feature evocative ideas and perspectives on issues and topics to reach a range of audiences and venues outside the classroom using print and oral technologies (e.g., posters, essays, letters, debates, speeches, reports, and maps) and digital technologies (e.g., Internet, social media, and digital documentary).
  • D4.7.6-8. Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
  • D4.7.9-12. Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.

Common Core Literacy Standards

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITEARCY.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.