Source: Eastern Institute of Technology – Tairāwhiti
13 minutes ago
The EIT Youth Vaping Research team is (from left to right): Associate Professor Rachel Forrest; EIT lecturer Jocelyn Lañas-Pangan; EIT Masters of Health Science student Melody Khan; Associate Professor Anita Jagroop-Dearing; Dr Helen Ryan-Stewart; EIT’s Executive Dean, Education, Humanities and Health Science; and Dr Sue Scott-Chapman.
Groundbreaking research into teenage vaping in Hawke’s Bay is currently being collated and is set to give an insight into the scope of the problem and what triggers youth wanting to vape.
Dr Sue Scott-Chapman, a Principal Academic Staff Member in the School of Health and Sport Science, is part of a team examining the epidemic of youth vaping in Aotearoa led by Associate Professor Anita Jagroop-Dearing from EIT. The other members working on this programme of research include Assoc. Prof. Rachel Forrest, Dr Helen Ryan Stewart, Jocelyn Lañas – Pangan and Melody Khan
The project is being funded by EIT (Research Innovation Centre), the Health Research Foundation Hawke’s Bay and the Health Research Council.
Sue says that the team has surveyed more than 2000 students – both vapers and non-vapers – in Hawke’s Bay about the impact it has had on them.
With the Hawke’s Bay interviews done, the analysis of the information received is now underway.
“We are in that process of now looking at the data that’s been provided. The students have been really eager to support both phase one and phase two and now we’ve got really good data that we’re about to analyse.”
“We’re doing it in two different ways – the quantitative and the qualitative side of it.”
Sue believes that the study will give “a lot more insight” into what triggers youth wanting to vape.
“It will also give an insight into their understanding of the extent of vaping and the consequences of vaping.”
With the help of a second grant from the Health Research Foundation Hawke’s Bay, the team has extended its research outside Hawke’s Bay to focus on Pāpāmoa College. This research will contribute to the Masters of Health Science project by student Melody Khan, who has been involved in the original study.
“There may be a lot of similarities, across the two regions, but to me it’s differences and the experiences of different schools because of the different regions and the different kind of emphasis. I think it’s going to be really interesting.”
“I would think the differences may be the quantity and the availability of vaping products in larger regions, I would suspect that it is easier to attain in larger areas.”
“I would love to see how different schools are affected by vaping. When it’s a large school, the feeling is it’s a lot more difficult to manage just because of the numbers of individuals that you are looking at, but smaller schools give you that opportunity to know the students up front and provide more support.”
Sue says that schools are handling the problem differently and she is confident that the analysis of their research will help them deal with the problem.
“They are trying to manage it in slightly different ways and hopefully with the outcome once we have analysed it, there will be potentially a good opportunity for schools to be able to discuss it at another level and to look at what structures can go in place.”
“I think part of the tools that we are looking at is how do we support schools manage this in an easier way, a better way, a more streamlined way for all of them because they are all just trying to manage it the best they can with the information they have got.”
Sue says that phase two of their data collection has finished and they hope to have the data analysis of at least phase one finished by February next year.
“There’s a lot of work still ahead of us in terms of particularly the qualitative aspect of it, looking at those patterns and those themes that are coming through and making sense of it.”
