Public Health England, August 2015
Smoking rates in England are in long-term decline. However, tobacco use remains one of the country’s major public health challenges with the harm increasingly concentrated in more disadvantaged communities. Over recent years, e-cigarettes have risen in popularity to become the number one quitting aid used by smokers. 1 This consumer-led phenomenon has attracted considerable controversy within public health and beyond, with the unfortunate consequence of confusion among the general public about the relative risks of nicotine, e-cigarettes and smoked tobacco.
This latest comprehensive review of the up-to-date evidence on e-cigarettes, commissioned from Professor Ann McNeill and Professor Peter Hajek, synthesises what is now a substantial international peer-reviewed evidence base on e-cigarettes. It provides a firm foundation for policy development and public health practice in the context of new regulations for e-cigarettes to be introduced in the UK from May 2016 under the revised EU Tobacco Products Directive (currently under consultation).
