A Cross-Sectional Study of Electronic Cigarette Use Among Chinese Adult Populations in Four Cities of China. Part II. Puffing Topography

Summary With the rapid popularity and increasing numbers of E-cigarette (EC) users, debates on possible health risks and regulation of EC products have attracted attention in public. As a useful means to help assessing the risks of EC consumers, puffing topography studies have come to be an important tool globally. In this paper, a cross-sectional epidemiological study on puffing topography of 511 EC consumers in four cities of China was conducted in January 2018. Data acquisition was based on a questionnaire and a Clinical Research Support System (CReSS) Pocket device for the smoking behavior recording. The results showed that EC consumers in the four cities were mainly young males, most of whom preferred tank systems with zero or low nicotine concentrations (1–5 mg/mL) in the liquid. The average puff volume, puff duration and inter-puff interval (IPI) were 87.2 mL, 1.97 s and 22.0 s, respectively. The factors that may have affected puffing topography such as product type, nicotine concentration, using time, smoking status and battery power were studied. The results suggest that the EC product type and the concentration of nicotine in EC liquids were the main factors that affected the puffing topography of the users. This study was the first study on the puff topography of Chinese EC consumers with a large number of participants. The results may not only help to more deeply understand smoking behavior and to better assess the potential risks for the EC users, but they may also supply useful information for the development of smoking machine regimes for ECs.